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Jun
24
Written by:
Jeff Shapiro
6/24/2009 11:01 PM
After a couple of Mistral days we had beautiful weather for a task yesterday. Light winds out of the South west and good lift forecast allowed the task committee to call a 164k course (around 100 miles) in a huge square like shape around the area. The winds were light on launch and as often happens on Chabre, the wind started comng in from the west which cause for "over the back" conditions occasionally and dust devils to roll through launch which made it a bit sporty to get 130 pilots off safely. In the end there was only 1 blown launch which resulted in a damaged glider but the pilot was ok.
We (the US team) got off and climbed to cloud base trying to find each other and to be in good position. We all ended up taking the second start and seemed to be making good time to the first turn point. I lost most of the team but was with Alex Ploner (from Italy) and Andre Wolf which felt comfortable and fast. I climbed in a screamer (the strongest for the day for me) that took me back to 3000m in 12-15mps and that's when I made my first poor decision. Most of the fast guys went straight across the town of Gap to the turn point which was a very direct line. I thought that the clouds (the only clouds) over the mountains looked faster so I swung wide and got on top of the peaks. I found good lift and ended up on the same course line that I took on a task last year over Peak de Bure. It worked but I was now 3-4 glides behind the leading group. After crossing the same turquoise lake that we crossed last year (OB took really nice photos of us crossing it for a pre worlds blog post) I got the turn point and had to take a couple of slower climbs to get over the mountains to make it past a largely non land able area on the way to the last turn point. I climbed with a russian and about 3 other pilots over a sail plane port and managed to pick a decent line to the turn point which was on the low side of a ridge line made up of several scallops. Unfortunately, I didn't clear the ridge and got a bit stuck between two ridge scallops and had a bit of a scary time trying to beat the rotor to the front of the mountain. The Russian woman, Julia, and a Kiwi, Warren both apparently landed in the trees in this same place later. I made it to the front of the mountain very low and tagged the turn point with just enough height to work ridge lift and thermals back to the peaks top and saw that I had to make a pretty long jump across a high plateau to make it into goal. I worked hard but never got above 1900m and decided to try to make it with hopes that I would find lift on the plateau and or the peak on it's flanks. After an hour and a bit of cursing I landed 13ks short up on that plateau.
It turned out that the road I landed on was a bit hard to find and it took around 4 hours to find me which made for a long night. It's hard starting a comp off way down the results list as many pilots either made goal or barely didn't but today is another day. That's the beauty of this sport. It's exciting, self reflective and humbling all taking place in some of the most beautiful places on this planet.
I apologize for not posting photos. My SD card is somehow not working so I will have to replace it.
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Re: first task
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6/9/2010 12:38 AM
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