A final challenge
Well, the 2007 Cape Gauntlet saw a challenging last day with two experienced competitors landing out - proving that the ridges around Worcester need to be handled with care.
With 7 competitors, briefing was held in the Seibert Training centre (made ready by the ever helpful Jerry Betbedder) and grid bingo unerringly fingered the only compeitor not rigged to be wind dummy (Peter Farrell in ID). Peter declined the grid slot and Adriaan K17 Hepburn was ready and waiting on the grid at the early launch time of 10:45 - influenced by a forecast that suggested the cold front would arrive in the early evening with rapidly lowering cloud bases. Sven EY Olivier was unable to participate but unerringly forecast the wave with contrary to the BLipmap view (thanks EY!).
In the event the early launch proved the correct option as the Audensberg was working well and most competitors were able to 'hold' there in the prevailing WSW wind. All competitors started within a few minutes of the gate openning at 12h09 with only X32 electing to start in a Northerly direction.
FLARM proved itself invaluable again for at least one pair of pilots - only detecting each other after the second alarm. Try to remember that the FLARM is less reliable at detecting conflicts where gliders are turning, be ready to take avoiding action, and lookout!
So the race was on down towards Swellendam with most competitors making a first turn well before Swellendam corner. X32 abandonned the Waaihoek bowl as the South end was not working well and Mostertshoek had cloud too low to allow routing north, and had a bit of a struggle to regain decent altitude on the Audensberg before setting off in pursuit (an hour behind the pack).
Meantime GOG was showing the pack what Bladerunning feels like as Cornelius lead the field. ID (who started off tow) needed to top up with a thermal at Ney and dropped from 2nd to 6th. But after Robertson Cornelius was running lower than the rest and decided to top up, so did K17, and the rest of the pack (Rico / Jacobus in RS, Peter Farrell in ID and Mark Seigelberg in 79) caught up to within a couple of kilometers.
Conelius and Adriaan again took climbs in the Montagu gap and this droped K17 to 4th with ID steaming back into 2nd although somewhat lower) with Cornelius holding a slight lead). At about 80km Cornelius decided to turn and all but 79 (Mark flew on to the Swellendam Corner at 89km out) turned with him.
Again Cornelius pushed, accepting the lower altitude for the increased speed and was about 1km ahead of ID and K17 and RS by the time they returned to the Montagu gap. RS and GOG took a clear lead, but were running into the Robertson spur (50km out) at just below 4000ft with K17 and ID trailing but a 1000ft higher.
And that's where the wheels came out (and off) for GOG & RS. The Robertson Spur in such a Westerly needs to be approached from the East with at least 4500 because you will lose at least 1000ft in the turbulent last 10km running in. Both RS and GOG outlanded at Robertson, while the slightly more cautious ID and K17 made it over the spur and back to Worcester (they they repeated this for a near carbon-copy score of 366km).
Most interestingly, with the wind becoming more Southerly through the day, X32 was able to make it around the Swelendam corner on the second trip out - and it looked like it was working all the way to Vreysrant, but the lowering cloud base at Worcester recommended an early return.
Thanks everyone for making this a fun day, not least tuggies Nian and Paul T, and duty pilots Jerry and Frank. Slick is the only word for it. Thanks.
For those that want to get a real impression of the 'racing' I would suggest loading the flight traces from OLC into See You or Strepla and watch the bug racing - it may convince you that flying with other pilots on a similar task teaches you a lot - and is a shared experience. The bar is always abuzz afterwards.
This ends the 2007 Cape Gauntlet - the first Gauntlet of the 2008 season will be contested on the first Saturday in November (3/11). Although the drop-a-day rule was agreed, in the event it made no impact at all on the positions, so these are the complete scores.
See you there. See the sidebar for D5 and Overall scores.
With 7 competitors, briefing was held in the Seibert Training centre (made ready by the ever helpful Jerry Betbedder) and grid bingo unerringly fingered the only compeitor not rigged to be wind dummy (Peter Farrell in ID). Peter declined the grid slot and Adriaan K17 Hepburn was ready and waiting on the grid at the early launch time of 10:45 - influenced by a forecast that suggested the cold front would arrive in the early evening with rapidly lowering cloud bases. Sven EY Olivier was unable to participate but unerringly forecast the wave with contrary to the BLipmap view (thanks EY!).
In the event the early launch proved the correct option as the Audensberg was working well and most competitors were able to 'hold' there in the prevailing WSW wind. All competitors started within a few minutes of the gate openning at 12h09 with only X32 electing to start in a Northerly direction.
FLARM proved itself invaluable again for at least one pair of pilots - only detecting each other after the second alarm. Try to remember that the FLARM is less reliable at detecting conflicts where gliders are turning, be ready to take avoiding action, and lookout!
So the race was on down towards Swellendam with most competitors making a first turn well before Swellendam corner. X32 abandonned the Waaihoek bowl as the South end was not working well and Mostertshoek had cloud too low to allow routing north, and had a bit of a struggle to regain decent altitude on the Audensberg before setting off in pursuit (an hour behind the pack).
Meantime GOG was showing the pack what Bladerunning feels like as Cornelius lead the field. ID (who started off tow) needed to top up with a thermal at Ney and dropped from 2nd to 6th. But after Robertson Cornelius was running lower than the rest and decided to top up, so did K17, and the rest of the pack (Rico / Jacobus in RS, Peter Farrell in ID and Mark Seigelberg in 79) caught up to within a couple of kilometers.
Conelius and Adriaan again took climbs in the Montagu gap and this droped K17 to 4th with ID steaming back into 2nd although somewhat lower) with Cornelius holding a slight lead). At about 80km Cornelius decided to turn and all but 79 (Mark flew on to the Swellendam Corner at 89km out) turned with him.
Again Cornelius pushed, accepting the lower altitude for the increased speed and was about 1km ahead of ID and K17 and RS by the time they returned to the Montagu gap. RS and GOG took a clear lead, but were running into the Robertson spur (50km out) at just below 4000ft with K17 and ID trailing but a 1000ft higher.
And that's where the wheels came out (and off) for GOG & RS. The Robertson Spur in such a Westerly needs to be approached from the East with at least 4500 because you will lose at least 1000ft in the turbulent last 10km running in. Both RS and GOG outlanded at Robertson, while the slightly more cautious ID and K17 made it over the spur and back to Worcester (they they repeated this for a near carbon-copy score of 366km).
Most interestingly, with the wind becoming more Southerly through the day, X32 was able to make it around the Swelendam corner on the second trip out - and it looked like it was working all the way to Vreysrant, but the lowering cloud base at Worcester recommended an early return.
Thanks everyone for making this a fun day, not least tuggies Nian and Paul T, and duty pilots Jerry and Frank. Slick is the only word for it. Thanks.
For those that want to get a real impression of the 'racing' I would suggest loading the flight traces from OLC into See You or Strepla and watch the bug racing - it may convince you that flying with other pilots on a similar task teaches you a lot - and is a shared experience. The bar is always abuzz afterwards.
This ends the 2007 Cape Gauntlet - the first Gauntlet of the 2008 season will be contested on the first Saturday in November (3/11). Although the drop-a-day rule was agreed, in the event it made no impact at all on the positions, so these are the complete scores.
See you there. See the sidebar for D5 and Overall scores.
posted by CGC Reporter at 12:42 PM
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