Task 2 : 63km

foto: Martin Scheel www.azoom.ch

A howling gale when we arrived at launch kept gliders in the bags, pilots huddled in all their clothes in the lee of any imoveable object drinking tea and with a general sense of no-hurry.
Our meteo man kept saying ' tis veeery nice day'...yeah right!
Lots of bets were placed on the chances of tasking, lots of beers were owed last night!

After rearranging / extending the launch area we waited and waited. Finally, the thermals from the front started blocking the wind and the state of play changed. 120+ chilled, relaxed pilots were frantically running for gliders, fighting to get set-up, fighting to get in line, fighting to get onto launch and then fighting with their 2-liners to get airborn. It wasn't pretty!
The state of tension was reaching explosion point as the wind blew across the launch and glider after glider snaked to the ground in front of the rapidly over-heating queue.
More launch organisation tactics are required for tomorrow....

Finally with all away we were able to breath a small sigh of relief but this quickly became a slight concern as gliders wobbled around the sky in the lower levels near launch. Higher pilots were calling level 1 but for those caught in the lower levels things were temporarily uncomfortable trying to control pitching and yawing wings through rough wind broken climbs.
The gaggles are massive, lots of touching wings, some true midairs, and shouting in 30 different languages.

Its been a long day of temper and tantrums....time to sleep now and dream of blue skies, light wind and an end to chaos.