Day 1

Day 1 is all about managing risks and not losing the competition at the start, with the aim to achieve 90% to 95% of the winner's points. Job done.

The flight was very interesting and very tactical. At the start the weather was "blue", meaning no cumulus clouds to mark the thermals. In gliding terms this means gaggles. Gliders in the blue love to get together and go round and round until either someone has lost the will to live and go or someone has the courage to  move on. Nobody wants to be the first, simply because as you go you are marking climbs for other people.

So at the start we were hanging around for over an hour, not going up, not going anywhere and time was running out. Eventually i said to the team, let's go, they will all come with us. And so it was, we left, called start and got going. Everyone (barring the French who were still having their lunch...) came along.

Then 5km down track we found a mediocre climb. I stopped and took it, and after couple of turns said to Claudi and Helen "let's go back for a restart". We turned back and as it was, most of gaggle stayed and carried on, and only a few came back with us. It worked beautifully. We arrived back at the start line, took a good climb and re-started 10 minutes after most of the class. We caught them up in no time.

The second half of the task was in cumulus. The climbs were ok but not great. I had a low point near the third turn point and I lost about 10 minutes there but made up some of the time on the last leg were i had a great run, barely stopping to climb at all.

More flying today.