It was pretty easy to cancel the day yesterday…pouring rain all morning and early afternoon, probably as much as 2” in the end. We took David and Lee out to lunch since they’ve been so nice to us, and they returned the favour by making a farewell party (also Will’s birthday party) in the evening. Lots of drinking ensued, and later on ridiculous games. All in all a good time was had by all.
This morning it was sunny and those pilots who were hemming and hawing about leaving had an easy choice to stay and fly the final day. The task was a 53 km downwind dash to Gulf Creek, past Barraba. Cloudbase was extremely low, about 1300 m, and the lift was light to nonexistent. Once again the launch gaggle grew and grew, and nobody was able to leave, until well after the first (and second) of the start gates had come and gone. A few pilots even left at basically ridge height, since getting high around launch was practically impossible.
I think the highest I got was around 1200 m at one point, and had I known what was to come, I would have left with that height, regardless of the start gates, if the gaggle was going, or if people were getting low ahead of me. But I thought I could get higher so I stuck around launch in that hope, but in the end I got flushed and landed in the west bombout.
Now I have been here for 1 month and never bombed out, and I was quite proud of that fact (given that Mt. Borah is only about 1000’ high). So I was really annoyed that this happened on the last day. But the Basher was there to take me back up to launch, and I relaunched before the window closed. But fate (or bad luck, or lack of skill, take your pick :) decided I should land there again, which I did, about 5 minutes after the launch window closed. So after 1 month of no bombouts, I get to do so twice in one day.
So no chance to relaunch for this task since the window had closed by then, and it means I’m officially the suckiest pilot for today’s task. I certainly didn’t see any other comp pilots land there after the window closed! But looking at the bright side of things, I got to pack up on nice green grass (thanks to the rain) and have a leisurely drive back to Manilla, and not have to rush back like the oodles of people that made goal today. And when I downloaded my GPS I didn’t have a huge lineup of people, since I was back first :)
Apparently, if you were able to stay alive past Tarpoly, it got easier and whole bunches of people made goal today. Will (even hung-over), Keith, Josh, and Tom all made it. Kari and Bill went down about 20-25 km downrange. Brian Webb and Steve Ham went down in the same general area too. So the standings will change once again; today was yet another example of survival in light lift while avoiding mid airs, absolutely no racing involved, and huge amounts of luck in who stayed in the air and who didn’t. Tom has a shot at the podium since he was 5th going in, and word is that Crigel didn’t make goal today.
Will report on the overall standings and final party later!
Nicole
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