The thick clouds came in early and stayed most of the day, although there were still a few weak thermals. The winds were 10 to 20 mph out of the southwest which made it hard to stay local, which all the pilots wanted to do on this practice day.

About a dozen out of seventy pilots flew on the practice day with the rest of us feeling that we would save our limited number of tries for a competition day. A couple of pilots chose to land close to the buildings in the reasonably strong winds, and one, Zac Majors, paid the price, with perhaps a broken thumb. I'll go more into his accident and poor landing later. We all watched it in slow motion (and of course, that was the problem, even though he "felt" that he was pulling in hard).

The meet is heating up with lots of excited pilots, bunches of new gliders from Wills Wing, food and a few drinks in moderation at the "Duke" bar.