The forecast for the whole weekend had been abominable which of course meant that we all woke up on Saturday morning to bright blue skies and streeting thermals!The forecasts we had were all virtually useless so ignoring them, we looked at the sky and decided to set some tasks anyway.
The Pundits had a 108km O/R to Invernes and the Intermediate and Novice classes were 56km O/R to Ferness.
The grid was launched and surprisingly few people fell out despite 8/8 cloud cover and heavy showers all around. However, the showers to the west put paid to most peoples efforts to gain ground and most were forced to return to Easterton without making the minimum 20km down task. There were two heroes who did manage to push on though and they were both Fulmar pilots.
Pete Smith in the K18 punched through the shower and made 22km to win the Novice class landing just short of the turn point.
Mark Brown flying in the pundit class won by flying down
the spey valley and crossing the moor near Tomatin actually turned Inverness
before landing out shortly afterwards. A thoroughly deserved win and an
outstanding start for Fulmar who are the defending champions.
Sunday produced the southerly wave that was forecast in the morning. It was heaving and consequently a very optimistic 306km double O/R was set for the Pundits and intermediate classes. The task was Easterton to Dalwhinnie to Dufftown to Feshie and back to Easterton. The novices were given a 129km O/R to Feshie.
Although the crosswind was quite strong, we managed to
launch the grid without incident and the intermediate class were launching into
strong wave directly overhead. Climbs to 12000’ were achieved before the start
gate even opened for that class which was a shame because the start height was
6000’! Unfortunately, as the grid continued to launch, the wave started to
collapse and many competitors were forced to land back for relights. None of the
Novice class could get anywhere and theirs was a non scoring day. The pundits
and intermediates fared a little better with Guy Davidson and David Chalmers
battling for first place in intermediate. David landed out at Tomatin and Guy
flew to the same area before backtracking to land out near Forres. They had both
been halted by a particularly solid cloud barring the way south. It was very
close with David winning on speed points as we were scoring according to
national ladder rules. Andrew Warbrick in the pundit class managed to thermal
nearly the whole way to Feshie winning the class for Cairngorm. He stayed the
night there and aerotow retrieved the next morning to claim his prize!
Mondays forecast was a task setters nightmare. Showers could break out
anywhere but particularly to the west. The East was forecast to be marginally
better but Easterton was the wrong side of the dividing line. After much
discussion, an assigned area task was set for all three classes with Keith as
one sector looking east and Dufftown the second sector looking south and east
and both 30km radius. The idea was to fly as far as possible into each sector
and then home to make the biggest triangle possible.
The morning looked good with thermals up to 4200’ at 11am. The grid was
duly launched with the novices first followed by the intermediates and finally
the pundit class. This turned into the most competitive day of them all with
everyone in the Pundit class scoring and the other classes also scoring. We even
had one competitor complete a task in the novice class and finish at height
restarting in the intermediate class and scoring again! Almost certainly a first
especially as he won both classes! Well done to Dave Thomson for that. The only
other finisher was John Williams who gave us the only competition finish of the
whole weekend after turning Dufftown and Aberchirder to win the Pundit class.
The pundit class was a real battle with everyone managing to fly far
enough to score. Roy Wilson and Andrew Warbrick both managed to reach the limits
of each sector before both landing out near Keith. The Acro with Trevor Cooke
and Tom Hughes made a determined effort to score but the competition was too
strong and they came in last place but deserve a mention for a gallant effort
landing out near Glass.
Click HERE for
the daily scores but as far as the final points for each club is concerned here
are the results:
CLUB
SAT SUN MON TOTAL RANKING
SGU
3 3 15
21 1st
FULMAR 12
5 2
19 2nd
CAIRNGORM 3 7
5 15
3rd
HIGHLAND 3 7
4 14
4th
DEESIDE 3
3 5
11 5th
ANGUS 2
1 2
5 6th