Day 8 wrap-up

Jerzy came in at 16:28 after spending 3:54 hrs on task. The resulting speed was 116.46 kph which was good for 888 points and place 23. Doug Jacobs (USA) won the day in 18m Class with a speed of 123.68 kph.

The conditions which had looked so good in the morning and early afternoon started to deteriorate later as thick cirrus pushed in from the south. The photo above was taken around 5:15p, 45 minutes after Jerzy had landed. This was a problem for the 15m Class since their turnpoint far to the SE was under the cirrus early in the game.

It turned into a long wait for Dave. I kept looking up while I helped Jerzy de-rig XG, as the sky got worse and worse . Finally, around 6p, Dave overflew the finish line after having been on task for nearly 5 hrs. We were all relieved he had made it home. Dave told me later that the last 170 km were just a struggle into the wind with weak thermals. He teamed up with some prominent British and French pilots but this time they happened to be slow. His speed of 84.87 kph was good for 675 points out of 1000 which landed Dave in 37th place for the day. The winner, Graham Parker of Australia had clocked 103.72 kph.

In the overall 18m scores, Jerzy dropped from 8th to 11th, just ahead of Doug Jacobs (US). Although we had all hoped he would manage to get back to 5th place, this is still an excellent result. Jerzy is the highest placed pilot from a non-European nation in the 18m Class.

The forecast for tomorrow is calling for solid stratus clouds and rain. It is quite possible that the overall results as of today will be the final results for the 30th World Gliding Championships. However the French team is not taking any chances and they sent their pilots to bed early. Stay tuned...