German open day 5

A shitty forcast and a wave filled sky this morning. Still, optimism won out so we went up to launch at 11am to be greeted with strong cold west wind. Hmmmmm, time for ALL the clothes and burrowing down in any available leeside sunny spot.

The Germans really need to get a valid task today - i am told that none of their competitions this year have been valid due to bad weather.
To protect us from the strong and still strengthening wind a 53km elapsed time task to the north-east was set with timed gates at 20minute intervals. Launch conditions were marginal to say the least. Steve Ham and I sat huddled in 'cowards corner' as glider after glider pinged up from launch and then parked in the wind. In the words of Bartek it was a day for ballooning!
But it was a competition so we put our self-preservation instincts away and prepared to do battle.
As Steve launched to a cry of 'this probably isn't a good idea' the wind started blowing a hoolie from the Northwest. Pilots in the air were calling level 2 and 3 over the safety frequency from a multitude of random locations. The meet director conscious of the criticism from yesterdays task was determined that we would get a scoring day out of it and delayed stopping the task until the 11th hour and then announced that the 'task WOULD be stopped' at the validation time. Normally an elapsed time task can not be validated if stopped, I don't know if the Germans have a different rule. Many discussions/arguments later and the task has not been scored and we are left wondering how points can be considered more important than safety - the various guys (many of them very experienced) calling level 3 dangerous conditions surely weren't doing it for a joke. When it comes down to it, the guy who wins gets a T-shirt.. is that worth risking life & limb for?
I enjoyed an entertaining journey back down the hill courtesy of our now considerably more confident lady bus driver and Billie the German pineapple munching polymer physicist. Thanks to Billie for eating all the things I didn't like in the 'trail mix', but that hazelnut will be remembered ;-0 !!