Daniel Vélez () writes:

Finally the Colombian Nationals have started. The first day the Meet director was over-ruled by a democratic party that "too early" decided that the main take off site was going to be tail wind all day, so we decided to try another take off place 130 km away. Unfortunately it took too long to get there and we ended up on a late afternoon - free flight day, but at least we got to fly.

The second day, we finally got to fly on the main site in marginal conditions. The task committee decided a predefined task of 48km (we downloaded 20 optional tasks to all the GPSes on the registration so the pilots only need to choose from the route menu the task of the day).

I took off first in a light rain and almost fell right to the bomb out zone. After struggling for 30 minutes 200 meters under the 700 meter take off, the other pilots started to take off and many of them ended up on the bomb out landing field. Finally we decided to just get going drifting from thermal to thermal at 500 meters above ground.

We went on for the first 20 km skimming on small 2-3 km glides in order to stay airborne. Near the end, the day started to work a little but it didn't seem like enough. The three leading pilots just couldn't get to the last turnpoint as it was above them (it was on a high hill top).

Finally we ended up flying straight toward the hillside and turned just as we were about to hit it. Thankfully all three pilots made it by just a few meters inside the turnpoint the cylinder. Unfortunately, the final glide to goal was the easiest part of the flight, when we flew through the most beast thermals of the day. I made it in first, followed closely by Mike Glennon, and thirty five minutes later by Alejandro Isaza. The day weight was low (550 pts. It took us 2:00 hours to get around the task

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