Well this was the first official day of the Women’s World Gliding Championships. The sky looked typically British with initially a low cloud base and the potential for overdevelopment.
At briefing, the weather forecast was for showers just to the North of the area and the potential for the cumulus to go to great heights. The task set for the Club Class was a 129.3km Polygon with three turning points – Start Bravo – Hallstahammar – Stenby – Hed – Arboga. In order to try to get everyone on task before the weather set in, an early launch of 11:15 was set with the Club Class going first from the grass and the Standard and 15 metre classes off the runway.
Fortunately, once launched I was able to stay airborne until the Start line opened. Liz, Ayala and I had decided to go as soon as possible after the line opened in order to beat the showers which would kill any lift in the area.
A word about handicaps – my Mosquito has a ridiculously high International Handicap of 1.07, whereas Liz’s Standard Cirrus is 1.00 and Ayala’s Libelle is 0.98, so immediately I am at a 9 point disadvantage compared to my team mates. This basically means that I have to work twice as hard in an attempt to fly much faster than the others in order to get any kind of reasonable score on a daily basis.
Another word about the Mosquito – it’s absolute rubbish in the rain; the wing section is such that once the wings are wet, it practically falls out of the sky, so I was extremely keen to get going early in order to avoid the showers.
Once away from the Start at 12:24, I completed the first leg with no problems, it just felt a little slow. I turned Hallstahmmar and decided to run back up the track I’d gone into the turning point, i.e. South of track. However, this meant that I was on a collision course with the Standard and 15 metre class gliders as they flew in the opposite direction to me towards their first turning point. I put up with this for a while as it was clearly a good line of energy, but chickened out in the end and turned towards the North, through the centre of the second and third tracks.
The second leg wasn’t a particular problem and I in fact caught up with Ayala and Liz in a thermal half way along the track. Both were higher than me and pushed on again. Around the second TP at Stenby and clearly ahead of us were huge showers falling in curtains from two lines of large streets of clouds. I pushed on now with a gaggle of gliders with Liz and Ayala at the top. There was no choice but to go through the shower at right angles – I was not looking forward to this and asked Liz if there were landable fields ahead, she replied in the affirmative. I pushed on through the showers and watched with dismay as I lost a 1000ft more than any other glider. On the other side we were able to climb again at Hed just in front of the next shower with me starting at the bottom of the gaggle. Around that TP and I turned towards the South – the last leg with not quite enough height to get back with and yet another, bigger shower to go through this time. However the glide from the first shower to the second had a line of lift and I actually gained height in a straight line with wet wings. The others were able to push on ahead of me through the shower with no problem. I entered the shower which was much heavier this time and I had 6 knots of sink. I continued to push forwards as the rain became heavier and the forward visibility reduced quite dramatically. I popped through on the other side and in the distance I could see the runway at Arboga (it is 1200 metres long!). With wet wings, I wanted to ensure I could actually get back and on the other side of the rain shower there was 10 knots of lift – I did a couple of turns then headed for home.
I completed the 129.3km in 1 hour 39 minutes at a speed of 78kph. The winner did it t 84kph, and if you check out the provisional results, you’ll see I came 13 with the speed of 78kph and the next 8 pilots above me on the scores did it in more time than I (i.e. slower), but this is the effect of the handicap….
The Standard Class (in which Fran and Gill are flying) and the 15 metre class both had the same task – 156.6km Polygon – Start point Delta – Hallstahammer – Lindesberg – Hed – Arboga. Unfortunately, both Gill and Fran were cut off completely by the rain showers and landed out in the same field 30 km short of Arboga.
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