The latest scores will be up at: http://www.soaringspot.com/2007gc/results/

After lots of rain on day five, as well as plenty of rain on the night between day four and day five, the sky clouded up soon after sunrise and covered the sky with a low cloud base (just what you'd expect after so much rain) until they started to break up at 10 AM. Scott went up for a test flight at 11:00 AM and found lift between 2,500' and 3,000' AGL. The sky was full of light fluffy cu's.

The task committee called a 84 kilometer task to the west southwest (pretty much what we've been doing ever since the winds came up after the first two days). Given the uncertainty in the weather eighteen start times were set ten minutes apart starting at 1 PM.

I was off early at 12:20 PM and found light lift to cloud base at 3,500' AGL. I had to wait around for the first start gate at 1 PM. The lift continued light (less than 200 fpm) with east winds at over 10 mph.

Not too many pilots were in the air, perhaps waiting for a higher cloud base later in the afternoon. I could spot Trent, Phil, and Cris with Scott closer to the launch as we moved further down wind for the 1:20 PM start time.

I headed out pretty much by myself at 1:20 and found no lift as I headed west. Down to 700' AGL I was faced with a choice of heading up a hillside and into the hills or staying the in flatlands and finding lift under the nearby clouds. I headed into the hills until I was finding broken lift 300' over the tops.

This didn't work to get me up as I searched around the hill sides. Finally I had to move a bit downwind to the lee side of the hills and just past the last little bump at 350' AGL I found a thermal that was coherent. This baby took me to 4,500' AGL, the highest I was to get for the day.

There were plenty of cu's around. I saw pilots low as I was thermaling up but lost track of them. Scott was 5 km behind having started 10 minutes behind. There were plenty of lift indicators ahead so it was okay to be on my own.

As I approached Wellington I was worried about the forested hills to the west. I wanted to be sure to get as high as possible before going over the hills. There was a big black cloud over Wellington and plenty of thick black clouds along the course line past Wellington.

I climbed to 4000' AGL 5 KM before Wellington, but then found no lift under the dark cloud. I missed a little bit of lift past Wellington, and found no other lift all the way across the hills and landed on the lee side, where the eighteen mph wind was clearing the thermals out, 13.5 km from goal.

Scott, Trent, Armand, Warren, and Shane made goal. Those who made goal found strong lift at Wellington and were able to glide to goal from there. Scott said that the better plan would have been to head south along the windward side of the hills to find lift before going over the top.

Photo by Belinda.

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