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http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:Weissenberger/3.11.2013/13:42#fd=route

Thomas Weissenberger <<tomtom>> writes:

We came to Chile to fly 350 km declared out-and-return world
record, and yesterday, Sunday we did it! 365 km total and Tom's personal
best.

It was an extraordinary day with high cloud base at 900m, slow at the beginning
but with increasing SW breeze and good ridge lift with 40km/h average speed.
Already at 3pm I could make the turnpoint after 175km in four hours.

The way back was a hell of a race with 20km/h SW winds flying with 60km/h
average speed! At 5:45pm I could reach my highest altitude of the day over
1.000msl just before the ridge was getting low to 400m. But I was also gliding
into the shade of fog at higher level that drifted in from the pacific ocean and
its cold Humboldt stream.

Condition died and the fight started just to stay airborn to finish the last 20
km! Now my fast run paid off being kinda early back for a hot final. Clock was
showing 6pm, just 20' after my highest altitude - conditions do change very
quick here!

Scratching the hills 10m agl, 350msl that is, in overcast sky the warm sand
still offered catabatic lift 0.5-1.0m/s but just to the top of the ridge: first
500, then 600, then 700msl at 7pm!

For the last 10km I had two options: just making the start cylinder or landing
at the golf court as the very last landing option before Iquique city. Going
around the very last corner the final glide was showing -350m to arrive take off
at 550m. So these last 200m would have been left to find a place to land. I
still don't know how my decision would have looked like but on my way I hit the
very last thermal with 1m/s consistent climb to cloud base at 800m for making
the last 6km - that was it!

Easily my RS 3.5 was flying over take off again with a joyfull 15km final glide
over Iquique city and landing at the beach 7:20pm.

After 347km, 352km and now 365km I could set up three world records in
out-and-return distance. But it is not just about records, it is more about the
whole project 'record weeks Chile', all its efforts, four years of planning and
finally working out fine. What an odyssey!

From an earlier flight: