Thursday, July 10, 2008

Rat Race - Task 3 - Day 4

Northern California Fires

A familiar story of fires, this time in Northern California. We have seen smoke in the distance but have not been impacted yet. A big pyrocumulus built and broke the inversion way to the south yesterday, eventually forming into an anvil head.

A remarkable picture of a part of the battle, more images here

Woodrat – Task 3
Rabies, Woodrat, RabPk, Burnt, Rabpk, Purcell

Comments
Difficult start, inverted, stable, tight thermals going nowhere
Escaped up to Woodrat TP and climbed a little waiting for the start
Some gliders went across to Burnt to wait for the start, I saw them but was nearly as high over Woodrat TP. Then got flushed from the TP, the start gate open and I elected to make my way over to Burnt to recover and begin the task – late!
Burnt went well, Rabpk worked reliably, Woodrat allowed us to get back onto Burnt to reclimb. Left at 1600m with enough to get onto Rabies.

3 gliders were climbing out over the 1km ring of Rabpk and had nearly topped out. I tried to connect with this climb but over committed and was flushed low into the Rabies bowl.
Reclimbed, took the TP then topped out to 2000m for a glide straight to goal.

Going straight to Burnt for the SG was the better move

Flight

Hayden Glatte won the day, starting from Burnt

Scores

Lessons
If a strong trigger (burnt) is evidently working when elsewhere is not as reliable then go to it.
Committing to the flushed climb at RabPk was a good gamble with a recovery strategy (just)

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