No I won't be making excuses. I effed-up yesterday. They say you will bust the airspace once in your life - I've done it some years ago. You will also miss a turn point - this happened to me yesterday. I missed the observation zone by 3 meters. I got penalised with 50 points for that.
How did that happen? I'm not 100% sure but know it's all my fault and I will not do it again. I had too many warnings turned on that covered the screen at that moment and Flarm started yelling at beeping at me. It's no excuse of course and I learned my lesson. Never ever miss a turn point again!
If it wasn't for the penalty I should be happy with my flying yesterday. It was extremely tough especially at the beginning. We had 340 km to run and were launched after 1 pm into virtually nothing. We struggled to stay at or even below release altitude for almost 2 hours. Most of us got rid of the water by then. The gaggles were horrendous with all classes represented. There were some converging gaggles as well. Everybody tried desperately to stay airborne. Scary stuff but we're used to it and girls do know how to behave.
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We departed on task shortly before 3 pm when it just cooked up for w moment and we were able to go above 3000 ft AGL. We had a good run for the first 150 km showing about 95 km/h on the averager. Amazing what the glider can do it such a marginal conditions. Then the cirrus layers got thicker and thicker and gradually started shutting the weak thermals down. It was getting late too. With 180 km still to run it all started looking pretty poor and we were tippy toeing trying to use everything we could find. The sun was still pretty high up but the cirrus was just too much. Shortly before that last turn point we got into an area with thinner cirrus and some heating of the ground. I said to Asia we better hope it will cook up again to give us the final glide home. It did! Right over the last turn point we easily established final glide and had a nice 35 km run back home. What a relief.
Here are the results for yesterday:
And overall after 2 days:
And here is my flight on the OLC:
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Yesterday we were flying under a weak front (this was where the cirrus was coming from). Today the front has passed and the air mass is different. Predictions are not good at all but we're all on the grid and now waiting for the morning briefing. You can smell the moisture in the air, there are some over-developments visible on the horizon and the sky is covered with cirrus again. It is a different type of cirrus though. It feels sticky and not really fresh. I'm excited to see what happens when the temperature raises.
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