US Nats - Day 1

It was rather windy here for our first task on Saturday. The winds were forecasted to be 15mph on the ground and 25-30mph up higher. They were pretty accurate and James Tindle, the owner of The Florida Ridge and also our Safety Director was monitoring conditions closely. He reported prior to the day that the safety flags would go up when the winds reached 18mph and with gusts of another 4mph. We were hitting that at times and he felt it was borderline at times.

All pilots flew at least once and quite a few had multiple tows which is common when the winds are this strong - broken weak links, getting knocked off of tow low or not being able to hook a decent thermal brings the pilots back down quicker than on ligher wind days. We also had a number of weaklink breaks with the tugs as they were trying a little to hard to land on the tug start line and ended up wrapping the town line around fences. This caused a few delays in the tow lines but rather minor.

The task was a 76.4 mile downwind jog to the North-East. It was a good call for the conditions we had - 10 flex wings made goal as did 3 out of the 4 rigids. A few pilots got stuck downwind of either of the turnpoints and found it impossible to get back upwind to get the turnpoint. Bo said he spent an hour trying and then just gave up and headed downwind to the goal field.

The scores were only posted this morning on the web - a bit later than I like. It's the typical first day delays in getting the verification program (CompeGPS) all set up. There has been an ongoing debate on the GAP parameters chosen right from the get go and that continued through the day yesterday and even more once the pilots started coming back from flying. After talking with Steve Larson, The Floida Ridge manager & meet organizer) I am making an executive decision to adjusting the GAP parameters to what I felt was reasonable the first time. As meet director, I should have made that decision the first time around. The parameters were changed before any scores were run.

They were changed from a nominal distance of 75 miles down to 50 miles and a nominal time of 3 hours moved to 2 hours. This is more inline with what parameters were set for other competitions in the area in the past and more indicitive of the conditions that we will be faced with the rest of the week. Forecasts and weather for the upcoming week has changed from what they have had the previous few weeks - stronger winds are forecasted which may restrict us from being able to do larger triangles.

So check out the scores from yesterday here. It is using the new LeonardoCE reporting system that shows you more of the GAP paraemters and settings at the meet along with a task line with the turnpoints and all the scores. Where it really gets fun is that you can watch any (or all) tracks you want animated over a map right within your web browser without any additional software installed. You can also watch them in 3D in Google Earth as well. Scores are provisional at this time.

Enjoy!