Blue skies in the morning with cumulus clouds popping off by
10am and a light S-SE wind
Task 124Km triangle. Out
to Jandowae then SW to Brigalow and 53Km back to Dalby.Towing started at 11:30 after the Sports class were towed up. Those who picked low numbers for start order had up to 45 minutes to wait for the first start. Staying up was not a problem with lift around 600ft min; even those who had weak links break were able to get away low if you were lucky enough to find a thermal on your glide back to the tow line.
I had my weak link break at 340ft and lots of swear words were coming out of my mouth when I heard the vario start to beep and hooking into the lift I out-climbed a tug and tow and carried on up to over 6500ft.
The course to WPT 1 was littered with clouds with good lift with cloud base reaching 8400ft, which made the first waypoint reachable to most pilots. John Smith was racing to WPT 1 and got low (300ft) but managed to scratch up and get back in the race. Getting away from WPT 1 was made difficult by the thermal drift which was to the E, with WPT 2 in a SW direction.
The first couple of thermals on route to WPT 2 were slow going, as the drift took you back towards WPT 1. Further down the course WPT 2 came into sight but for those who got there late the heat of the day was wearing off and the clouds thinned out. The glides between clouds got longer. Slowing up was the best plan. Under most clouds the lift was smooth with a constant climb of around 300-400ft min.
Once WPT 2 was reached a cross/head wind up to 15kmh made
the run to goal slow for those who had not kept up the pace around the course,
making final glide difficult.
Kurt Warren won the day coming in 3 hours and 2 minutes
after start. 14 pilots made it to goal.
How good is Dalby? Classic race conditions and a technical
day for those here to win.
Results can be found on the Oz Report, or for full result
the Dalby club web site http://dalbybigair.com/results/
The Trans Tasman Cup is being fought for again, with NZ
pilots Hagen, Guy, John Smith, Conrad and Tish.
