We packed the truck full of toys and pup and headed off towards Segovia, about 700km away from here. The competition was based at Arcones, a 'one goat' village about 150km from Piedrahita. The launch is surprisingly reminiscent of a Scottish hillside, green, grassy, windy and with lots of snaggly roots to catch your lines! The competition started on the Sunday so by arriving on Friday (delayed after a week of truck 'issues') I had hoped to get a practice flight in on the Saturday. Needless to say, the wind was close to blowing away my tent through Friday night and didn't stop blowing all day on Saturday... and on Sunday and for quite a while on Monday too!
Probably the politest way of describing the competition organisation is 'shambolic'. After registration finished it was revealed that they had allowed 170+ pilots into the event and had provided transport for about 50 in minibuses. Transport up to launch took often in excess of 3 hours which delayed task setting each day and meant that we missed the window of opportunity for flying on a couple of days. That aside we did get to fly 4 tasks although 1 late task on Wednesday was ' micky mouse' in the extreme and resulted in heaps of complaints.
Flying in Arcones is very similar to Piedrahita, with the opportunity to use the mountain side for the first leg before traipsing into the flats when the day heats up. The wind really wasn't our friend and lured the task committee into setting tasks that took us headwind at every opportunity. It was good practice flying trimmers-off and full bar but didn't help make it easy to reach goal, even for the full-out competition wings. By task 4 I think we had had less than 10 pilots in goal over the entire event!
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