well after two rain days we finally got a comp day in. The morning did not look that promising with a cloudbase of only 500ft AGL until 10am when it started to rise. There was so much rain last night that I think many people were expecting the day to be called off. Mount Shasta was completely obscured by low cloud - see below.
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| Where Mt Shasta ought to be |
Because of the unpredictability of the conditions a 3 hour MAT was called - all they gave us was start gate, one turnpoint, and the finish. All the other turnpoints you could select yourself.
I started early because of the chance of late thunderstorms, but after 20 minutes when no-one else had started, I went back for a restart. Cloudbase had already risen over 1000ft so it was a good move. I restarted at 2:31for a 3 hour task. The first part of the task went well but it was strange to have to keep re-evaluating the sky in all directions to decide on the next leg.
In the end I made a blunder by visiting 12 turnpoints instead of the regulation 11, so I had to drop one, which dropped my total distance and speed. I still came between 2nd and 3rd on the day, but dropped a place overall. I'm now between 3rd overall but have pulled back some points on the leader, Peter Deane. There are now only 20 points between the top 3, and it looks like we will fly the next 4 days straight - with mostly blue conditions.
Here's a shot of LS4 DZ coming out of the box - this one is for Ian, who also has an LS4 DZ in the UK. How's that for coincidence?
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| DZ - Doppelganger |
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