14 August 2012

Dave's Day 9

Today we had a 581 km racing task.  Our task was changed on the grid because the initial task ran too far south and would have been under the influence of a deck of high cloud, and then ran too far north where we would have been in an area that received about 1.5 in of rain yesterday.


We had a short leg east, then went south and then up north a little ways into the hill country.  There was about 25% sky coverage with cu and some nice streeting.  Going into the second turnpoint I caught up with a group who had started a few minutes earlier and then stayed with them for the rest of the flight.  At times we went out own ways, but eventually met up again further along the course.

One mistake I made that cost me about 2 minutes - and 10 places on the day - was on the westbound leg to the north.  I was out ahead of the gaggle a little ways and elected to go right of course over the town of Kerrville where I expected a good climb.  It wasn't there, but the group that went left of course, found a good climb and then made it to the last turnpoint 1500 ft higher and 30 secs earlier.


The barograph trace shows the streeting action during the flight with lots of little bumps and only a few climbs.  It took 13 climbs to cover the 581 km distance and I averaged 5.4 kt for 12 % of the flight.   I had three nice long runs 134 km, 100 km and 91 km.

The final glide was spectacular, as a cloud street ran from just south of the last turn all the way back to Uvalde.  I climbed with the gaggle in a great thermal (7.2 kt) to 8600 ft and then ran home at 110-140 kts all the way, covering the final 83 km in 25 minutes !

My speed today was 148.3 km/hr - good for 13th on the day and only 2 minutes behind 3rd!

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