Faulty February

With the exception of Cornelius (whose trace is on OLC) I don’t have any of the competitor’s traces yet. The sad news is that since MIV was unavailable for relights, and because Adriaan was unable to launch himself (we will have to forgive this little foible) we were technically unable to offer every competitor a launch – so Saturday was not a competition day, despite some excellent distances. Thanks Adriaan for giving up your day to launch half the field twice – you da man, bro’.

We eventually started launching the second time at 13h30 when it was obviously cooking. The understandable reluctance of some competitors to be fooled into launching again was soon overcome by reports of 4 m/s in Jan du Toit’s, and Gareth heading North from Jan du Toit’s.

Both Sven and I had an excellent time being lead astray on the return trip from Klawer by Martin – showing us a new route back up the gorges from Bulshoek into the Cedarberg – I would get this demonstrated before trying it yourself! We then topped 240kph southbound on the front ridge racetrack – some of the best conditions I have ever experienced. Play the traces (when both are available) for a fast fun ride. A really memorable flight, thanks Martin.

I think most competitors flew over 300km and were in the pool with the family by shortly after 5pm!

We had a great braai with Dieter Betz (back for more punishment after his earlier visit with Dick Bradley’s Soaring Safaris) and significant other Maria and the other usual suspects. Dieter’s becoming a member so hopefully we will see more of him.

You should really think about flying the Gauntlet, it is really all about having fun. We pay so much attention to the enjoyment stuff that we haven’t scored a single day yet this season! Let’s hope the Marching Gauntlet sorts out the scoring.

See you on 1st of March, with your licences, at 09h00, if YOU can handle it.

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.

An ill-timed scrub

With the weather looking somewhat marginal via forecast, and the risk of a blow out, it was with some urgency that briefing was brief, and first launch was declared for 11h00.

However, only ID was on the grid in time and the wind beat the rest of the competitors to it as tuggie John Spargo made the prudent decision that the wind was too sever for towing.

Unfortunately, we decided to scrub, despite ID suggesting that there was some forecast information that suggested the wind might drop off.

It was with a slight blush that the director received the news from feisty Bill ("It's Party time!") Griffiths that towing was certainly possible at 14h00.

Rats!, the Gauntleteers were scrubbed too early (sigh). Sorry guys, the task setter, weather man and director all made the same error!

See you in October.

Easterlies can be rough!

The Cape Gauntleteers proved again on Saturday that they are intrepid - setting off on a 3 hour OLC-variant cross-country task in an Easterly. The grid of 5 was launched to Vic Peak and the gate opened at 13:04. And we were not prepared for what happened next.

Mark Siegelberg (TIM) had earlier scouted Vic Peak in the Lambada and found it to be working from as low as 2500ft and this was still the case when he arrived off tow at Vic Peak. He was soon followed by William (GIG) Whittaker and Peter (ID) Farrell. Craig (LW) Fussell and Cornelius (GOG) von der Heyden were not able to make the grid slots allocated and the gate was not held for their launch.

All headed off South to Villiersdorp with Cornelius and Mark leading the pack. But the ridge NW of Villiersdorp went a bit soft, and then softer still till it was solid sink. This was similar weather to the day on which Ed Verpraet and a Dutch visitor were caught out in GOK, and GOG almost carbon copied their experience. The ridge NW of Villiersdorp was in the lee of the Riviersonderend range and it was tough to get back north over the low pass.

Cornelius landed in very small field with long grass and could not avoid the almost inevitable ground loop - a good result given the situation. Mark headed across the valley to a good area of fields and was later retrieved from almost the centre of one by Hubert and Rob K (thanks guys!).

William Whittaker get the 'bleating sheep' award for the day despite having flown the second furthest on the day - as multiple people informed me that he had landed out - one even about to set off on retrieve - only to find out later that he had in fact made it back. Well done William - nothing like perseverance!

Craig (LW) Fussell flew conservatively into 3rd best distance, and all were eclipsed by Peter (ID) Farrell who exceeded 100km on task.

Unfortunately Peter was the only pilot to pass 80km on task, and hence it was not a valid competition day. Still, a LOT of gliding was done, and two gliders had to 'rough it'.

And we were especially honoured to have Lynneth Milne in the club house for the potjie and the dedication of the Cape Gauntlet trophy to Garth Milne.



Garth was such a living inspiration that you can learn and strive regardless of where you are in life, as aptly demonstrated by his winning the R&A Challenge and his land out between Piekeniers & Dasklip late last year. I am pleased to say that Lynneth has agreed to allow us to rename the Cape Gauntlet trophy the "Garth Milne Memorial Trophy", as he was in spirit & action a true Gauntleteer. And you can't say better than that.

Garth had gumption that great Gauntleteers need
His passion to glide an inspiration in deed
Cross-country he flew
And land outs he knew!
But now, with a laugh, his real wings are freed!

Go well, Garth, and now that you have real wings, don't laugh too hard at our earth-bound attempts to achieve airborne honours.

June fumes

The June Gauntlet was a scorcher - not for the speed of cross-country flight, more for the heat & inversion in the North Easter - and mainly for the fact that the club appeared like it had been the subject of another US military style "scorched earth" policy with very few members about.

For rugby fans, Saturday 2nd June at Worcester was like the first half of the 2nd Test with England. Seemed like we were playing with only half a team. The upside is that in second half of the 2nd Test everything seemed to come together, can we make it like that at Worcester? I think so.

Owing to Herr Direktor's carelessly broken foot, Sven Olivier kindly agreed to direct for the day and set a 2.5 hour OLC variant (thanks, Sven). Only four competitors (EY, ID, GOK with Martin Grunnert and Jaco "Graphics" Hartmann, and HW) were in the running, but witha NEr (our most difficult conditions) Vic Peak was struggling to keep William (HW) Whitaker and Peter (ID) Farrell airborne. GOK tried Audensberg to no avail, and anyway with a start at Rawsonville it would have been pretty challenging.

Herr deputy (EY) Direktor decided that technical dificulties made launching inadvisable (yeah, right, nothing to do with the weather? No, of course not. I thought so).

So it was rather a quiet day at Worcester (with Craig Fussell having a few paxes) and the scores remain unchanged. Or do they? We have not implemented the drop-a-day rule agreed at the beginning of this season as I was intending to give it force & effect after June's Gauntlet. Interestingly, in "drop-a-day", LW is one point ahead of ID, but we will hold off publishing the scores with the drop-a-day rule until there is another valid competition day.

Next month, July 7th, we will be having a club social as well as a Gauntlet. Lyneth Milne has asked if she can stand everyone a round of drinks in memory of Garth - who fondly remembered the treatment he got (tray service on the runway!) after one of his achievements.

Since the Gauntlet is about encouraging enjoyment of safe cross-country flight, this 'demotivator' from www.despair.com particularly apt. Make sure YOU always have somewhere to go:



See you there. IF you can handle it!

June Gauntlet with no regret!

The website www.despair.com does a great line in “demotivator” posters. This one really cracked me up – to the point that I will be unable to fly on Saturday.




Don’t despair though, I’ll be setting some impossible task in challenging weather for the true Gauntleteers – briefing at 10h00.

Farewell to a Great Gauntleteer: Garth Milne

I'm sorry to inform you that Garth Milne died on Friday after a short illness. The memorial service will likely be on Monday as the family are all here - details to follow.

Garth was such a living inspiration that you can learn and strive regardless of where you are in life, as aptly demonstrated by his winning the R&A Challenge and his land out between Piekeniers & Dasklip in the Cape Gauntlet late last year. I am pleased to say that Lyneth has agreed to allow us to rename the Cape Gauntlet trophy the "Garth Milne Memorial Trophy", as he was in spirit & action a true Gauntleteer. And you can't say better than that.

Garth had gumption that great Gauntleteer's need
His passion to glide an inspiration in deed
Cross-country he flew
And landouts he knew!
But now, with a laugh, his feather wings are freed!

Go well, Garth, and now that you have real wings, don't laugh too hard at our earth-bound attempts to achieve airborne honours.