Bogong Day ? 5 I think

I am loosing track of the days. We have flown every day and I am told this is a record for this competition. Today was another good one. With a forecast calling for NE winds we went to Mt Mystic, a site very popular with a few paraglider schools. Very consistent site. The task was a bit of a figure 8 of about 125 kilometers. About 15 minutes before the start gate the gaggle split into two groups of significance. One large group headed across the valley to Mt Buffalo and the other group heading across a different valley to the Myrtleford ridge. I went to buffalo because it looked like there was a great cloud street to the first turnpoint. Unfortunately it was very difficult to get up on the lee side of buffalo despite all the great looking clouds overhead. I took my time and worked my glide, bobbling in a light thermal over the base of the mountain. That way I could get to buffalo above ridge height and work my way around the corner to the windward side. Across the valley I could see a couple of guys getting a much better line on the opposite ridge. Lucky for me I was high in my group. Oleg and I charged ahead but I left some lift he stayed in to get high. Further down the shoulder of buffalo (on the windward side) I finally found a tight one that took me to cloudbase. At about this time the sky was really turning on. Big tall clouds were forming so I took part of a nice street halfway to the first turnpoint. Some of the guys I was with turned away from course line to get to some clouds but on the way out I had taken the time to spot a few gliders climbing around the corner. Knowing there were good clouds and gliders I headed around the turnpoint on course with not a ton of extra altitude. The clouds were working pretty well and some 400’s and 600’s got me pretty high when I left early to continue on. Oleg had caught back up and was on top (like usual). A fella who is great with the weather reports at all these comps was marking some lift at the next turnpoint so we charged there. Back under a cloud we started to see the really big numbers (800 plus). The sky was looking a bit worrisome with maybe 30 to 40 percent cloud cover and very high tops. With all the lift and fast climbs we kicked into high gear and took long fast glides. If a cloud had a good climb we would stay with it for maybe as many as a dozen 360’s but not if the lift was weak or dying. Most of the way to the last turnpoint the sky started to look much more blue. The cloud we were heading towards was lonely and drying out. Lucky for us it cycled back up when we got there, turning into a thousand at the top. I got distracted when I lost site of the 2 pilots above me and ended up whiting out myself. The bearing display on my instrument does not update as fast as my old garmin and I ended up flying out the wrong side of the cloud and losing lots of distance to the leaders. Frustrated, I glided hard down the small valley towards the last turnpoint. Our courseline at this point was down the center of a small valley that runs 90 degrees to the main Kiewa valley. The last TP was a 90 degree turn in the center of the main Kiewa Valley. I flew fast to the turnpoint and continued across the valley to the west facing ridges. The few clouds that were left showed that side of the valley to maybe bw working better. I arrived about half ridge height in a bowl I figured was feeding some wispies above. Since I charged hard I got a good line over some of the pilots I was behind and I ended up above a bunch of them. At least that gamble was paying off. We scratched up the ridge taking turns mixing and matching groups in different thermals. Oleg and Ollie had caught a better one arriving the highest and headed off down the ridge. I think they took one more thermal to make goal. It was about 20k. I left the handful of gliders who had joined me below. I didn’t want to wait for them to catch up and figured I could dolphin the ridge again into goal. I like doing that. I found a few thermals on the way strong enough to mush in or do a couple lazy ¾ VG circles in. When glide ratio got under 10 I picked up the pace and charged hard. Jonny blew us away with that good start of his and beat everyone by 20 minutes.

 

Kev C