The organisers have gotten their act together today – we’ve been issued maps with turnpoints on them, and I now have a list of the turnpoints too so I can tell you guys where we have been!
Task was 94km around the launch, with a 2km entry cylinder around Maguey and the Maguey turnpoint after that. In reality the day hadn’t actually started when the window opened, and even getting to an altitude where you’d feel like crossing over to Penon and Crazy was hard work. It got really hectic while we waited for the start gate, since there was so little usable lift and so many pilots. As soon as the gate opened we made the move, only to find ourselves in even worse traffic on the Maguey side of the valley. It got so hectic there that many pilots opted to just glide on without having comfortable altitude for the crossing back onto the Penon ridge, but it worked out surprisingly well all the same – not that the lift was strong, but there was clearly enough of it as in the end 92 pilots made it into goal!
From Maguey we went down south to Aguila (B30) and the going was slow and tricky. We were all thermalling in most anything that made the thing go beep, and still arrived at Aguila pretty low. The NE side was obviously not facing into the sun, so I had my doubts, but it worked fine all the same. Very broken, lots of drift, but we got back to around 3000m and headed back towards launch and ultimately towards Saucos, beyond yesterday’s goal. A few pilots decked it in front of launch after failing to connect to the ridge there, and I very nearly did the same, was in a gully below the Piano landing and had to soar up to the landing to catch a tight little bitch of a thermal that finally got me back into the race. From launch we aimed for the convergence and finally hit decent altitudes, with my meter stopping at around 3500m. The glide to Saucos was super fast due to the tailwind but I was certain that we’d all be decked by the headwind coming back towards launch and the Diente (B44) turnpoint that was to be the last of the day. As it turned out the glide back into wind was amazing – I lost 500m in 14km – and we could connect to the good thermal up on the plateau that had propelled us to 3500m on the way out.
Then it was back along the Penon ridge down to Diente, lots of headwind going out to it, back to the ridge and via Penon into goal at G03 Quintanilla. The owner of the landing field is a friendly dude, he’s been walking around handing out cold beers to all the horrid gringos taking over his field both yesterday and today – he deserves a big thanks.
One thing that is really striking here is how much the level has improved since my last Worlds – the speed is up, and so far we’ve had 90+ people in goal every day on days that I have considered challenging. The altitudes quoted above are deceptive since we’re flying over some really high ground, and even 3500m often doesn’t feel so high if you’re over a plateau at 2800m.
There were some reserves today, and Jouni from Finland went and got stuck in the top of some really tall trees. I heard from his team mates that he had been sitting in his harness hanging from the tree with his reserve in his hand, prepared to throw it should the branches break! Seems Jouni will need to change wings as his lovely Gradient didn’t appreciate the extra stress, but other than that he was in good spirits once he got back on the ground.
There’s some talk of doing a slightly shorter task tomorrow, with a later start, to avoid the scary 150 pax gaggles in the really weak thermals early in the day.
Oh, and I’ve discovered that my wing actually has nice handling (I was sure it was a real dog) as long as I turn left (which I never do), so I’ll need to get to launch early tomorrow to fix the trim. Wim from Belgium has been flying the prototype that Ronny didn’t like, and he’s loving it, and Stephan has sent me some drawings of internal bracing that we can cut out to make the wing more dynamic in turbulence (!) so there’s plenty to play with if only the days had more than 24 hours in them. I need to sleep!
Goodnight from Valle de Bravo, Mexico
Mads Syndergaard
