August 8 Report

The low-level inversion gets deeper every day, and despite the fact that today was the hottest day so far, we spent a lot of time on the grid waiting for the first thermal of the day. The waiting was not unpleasant.
Finally, at 1345, the launches began. Once again there was an aborted takeoff, without any serious consequences. The Wilga pilots are fond of saying that towing a 13.5 Metre Class glider is “like towing nothing.”

The pilots departed on a 316 km Racing Task to the south, into an area that is becoming very familiar to them. Nobody objects to the repeated use of this quadrant: the Tasks have been consistently toward the better conditions and away from the problematic airspace.

Local hero Vladas Motuza described his flight as difficult at first, with improving conditions toward the end of the flight. He found a 4.4 m/sec climb to 2600m on the last leg. But after that climb, in order to stay connected with the clouds, he made a big deviation to the south. This cost him about five minutes, which was the difference between his time and that of the winner, Stefano Ghiorzo. Stefano won the day with a speed of 98 kph, compared with second place Vladas, at 95 kph. Third place went to Morgan Sandercock, who has now secured a solid rank of third in the overall results.

It isn’t clear whether Vladas will catch Stefano for the title of Champion. We have six more racing days to find out.

[Photo credits: kvitrina.com]