Canadian PG Nats Day 7

The last day of the comp and it was windy from the south, so there was quite a bit of discussion and arguing on the launch about holding a task or not. We finally decided to make a provisional task, with no launch times, just to get people’s GPS’s all set up in case the task ever got called.

After watching some tandems launch and not do too badly, the safety committee finally gave us the OK to open the window, and off we went. Task was a 34 km downwind dash to St. Theodore. Some of the launches were a bit hairy with pilots careening through the spectators, but everyone got off safely, and once in the air it was butter smooth and “hands-off flying”, according to Jim Orava.

I wasn’t in the air too long when a nice thermal came through to get us high enough to head over the back (it was elapsed time rather than a race start, so we could leave whenever we wanted to and didn’t have to worry about skipping thermals if it was too early for the race to begin). Got up to 1200m ASL and then Jim, Keith, Jeff, and I went on glide over the flats.

There were not many clouds around, and it was too windy to hang around for one to develop, so we went on glide, spreading out, looking for lift. Once again nada, and we were on the ground after about a 12 km glide over the fields.

This place is really unpredictable! Clouds don’t work, going on glide spread out doesn’t work, staying with a group doesn’t work, all the things you’d think would be obvious for comp flying!

Several other people followed us later on and made it a bit further, but also had the problems of no thermals and were on the ground too. Will made it to within 4 km of goal, and Bruno made it all the way. There were no other people in goal.

Total results after 6 days:

Open Class:
1st Bruno Berti
2nd Will Gadd
3rd Jeff Wishney

Standard Class:
1st Bruce Busby (only 5 points ahead of Fred!)
2nd Fred Gauvin
3rd Randy Parkin

For doing so well in his first-ever comp, Jacques Blanchet won a trip for 2 to Costa Rica. It was also Josh's first-ever comp, and he was only 4 points away from winning this prize!

Total results at http://dowsettevents.pgcomps.net/ , pictures at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/ .