Third on Day 5 with 993 points

Although cloudbase and thermal strength were higher than predicted, the strong Northeastern wind sheared the thermals, particularly below 800 m (~2500 ft), resulting in slower speeds than expected, around 70 Km/hr. Sarah did quite well with a third place for the day for 993 points, which brings her back to third overall.
Most competitors were on task for nearly 5 hours. It is interesting that, although they did not fly together but only saw each other occasionally during the flight, the top nine for the day achieve scores less than 60 points apart, quite a small spread by World Championship scoring formulas. This is a tough competition.

Great looking sky for Day 5

On the line and in great spirits for Day 5, under another Uvalde-looking sky.

Forecast was for 1600 m (~5500 ft) cloudbase, but I have already seen altitudes of 1950 m (~6500 ft) on the trackers, as well as 3 m/s climb rates, quite better than yesterday. This should be a fast day.
The Club Class has a Turn Area Task with minimum time of 4.5 hours, taking them Southeast, then Northeast, then North all the way to the edge of the Paris TCA (thanks to all the normally prohibited areas that are open for the weekend), then South toward home.
The Club Class carries the trackers today, so you should be able to follow Sarah on http://www.livetrack24.com/tasks/1064/ or go to the organizers website and select "Live Tracking" under the "Follow the Races" menu.
Sarah left last, about 10 to 20 minutes after the other gliders, but seems to be doing very good on the first leg. As I write this, she has already caught up with some who left before her.
Enjoy the tracking for the afternoon... More later if we get some news from her.

A solid 3rd place for the day on Day 4

Sarah produced a solid 3rd place for the day after nearly five and half hours on course, and nearly seven hours in the air. All the scores can be accessed through the link to the organizers website on the right hand side of this page under the menu "follow the races."
She is back up to fifth overall, and ready for the second week of this championship. The forecast continues to look good for the upcoming days, so I expect at least a couple more days of long tasks. Stay tuned.

Mid-afternoon comments

I guess many learned their lesson yesterday about the dangers of playing too much of the start gate roulette game. Some late starters yesterday (some after 15:20 PM) got into trouble on the last two legs, going upwind in a vanishing convection, and as a consequence finished way over time, ending up flying 4 to 4.5 hr on the 3:15 hr TAT. Today, the entire Club Class started within a 7-minute window around 13:15 PM, as soon as the convection was well established. This is a good thing, although I think still a little bit late considering the fact that we are now expecting the task today to take about 6 hours and that the convection is expected to weaken significantly after 6:00 PM, and to be all but finished by 7:00-7:15 PM. Time will tell...

All radios have progressively become very quiet during the last 15 minutes, as all the gliders are probably nearing the end of the long upwind leg, some 90-100 miles away. We expect to hear back from them in about an hour (about 6:00 PM) when they'll get back within about 100 Km range.

Just a few words about yesterday: The small gaggles that had formed before the start rapidly separated or lost sight of each other under the spread-out clouds. Sarah had an OK flight, but flying by herself without the benefit of one or two teammates (the WWGC allows 3 pilots per country per class) to help her search for lift under the very wide and flat spread-out clouds, she ended up doing two low points that slowed her significantly on the upwind legs. She was a little disappointed, of course, but considering that we still have probably 7 days to go, there will be plenty of opportunities to regain her spot near the top. Stay tuned and keep checking with us during this upcoming final week.

Long task for Day 4

They have gone on their Day 4 task. The Club Class has an AST of 413 Km with 5 turnpoints located mostly in the Northeast sector.  During the weekend several airspace zones are open in that sector, which otherwise does not support tasks due to the multiple prohibited areas with various, and mostly low, altitude limits.
Take-off started at noon, as planned, quite earlier than normal for this site. The sky now is reminiscent of a good day at Uvalde, with nicely spaced Cu reaching around 4500-5000 ft. But looks are deceptive, as thermal strengths have been nothing like Uvalde so far today. The voices that we occasionally hear over the radio sound quite happy when calling lift better that 2 m/s (4 kt). I haven't heard a 5 knotter being reported yet. So, with 413 Km to go, a 10-15 kt wind, and assuming about 80 Km/hr (50 mph) average speed for the Club Class, this is likely to be a 5-hour task at least, more probably 6, if not 7 hours, depending on how the cloud cover evolves .

A Uvalde-looking sky (without the high climb rates) over still-uncut wheat and barley fields to the horizon

The "slow-trigger" tow pilot strikes again

We just returned from retrieving our tow cable, and I cannot resist posting the photo below: Our "slow-trigger" tow-pilot stroke again.... Several crew got lucky that one end of their cable was apparent on the runway, so could just pull it out of the wheat field; others got less lucky and are still meandering through the tall wheat as I post this...

They are on their way for Day 3

As expected, the take off was postponed a bit, and for this reason the task was changed to task B, a 3:15 hr TAT taking them on a tour around the Chateauroux airspace. The task includes five areas, but really only two to play with because the radii are respectively 5, 25, 25, 5, and 0.5 Km. I expect them to start around 2:45 PM, which will get them back around 6:00 PM, kind of a late arrival considering the forecast.