20 Juli 2010

The rain in Spain...




...falls mainly on the plains, and definitely not here at Montsec. Even the huge storm cloud that looked like it covered half of Catalunya discipated before any drop of rain arrived in Ager. I was surprised to see some rain this morning, it is cooling and cleaning the dusty air, a little relief. Restday today.
Yesterday task 7: Another day with a much better forecast than what we actually found in the air. It was difficult for me to face a headwind of up to 35 km/hr trying to go to the first turnpoint with a cloudbase of only 2200m again (prediction was from 2500 rising to 3900m...) I took several runs to get into the higher ridges, but it was like flying against a wall. Then I decided to try to go around through the flatlands to be more upwind, well it didn´t work either, so I landed out in the flats, wondering how the 19 guys at goal were able to get there. Part of it might be a 25 - 50kg question... it is much easier to punch forward with more weight.
Gerd said, "Eat more, and not just tofu!" - and I answered, "...but the poor pigs everywhere here, it is so sad! And I eat a lot of pasta in the evenings, I just don´t put on weight during comps, but I lose it"
I had landed close to a pig farm and had described the big silos and bad smell to my driver. Then I climbed up a huge pile of stones and realized that there were about 7 pig farms, and each one of them had the silver silos and large concrete buildings. Seems like the pigs are never outside before they are turned into serrano.
Oli made it to goal yesterday, but he said he had been shaking for a long time, as he thought at an early stage of the flight he might have to land in the trees. He got out, but just. Markus also scored for the team, landing just 10 km before goal, he had a good run.
Tom Weissenberger won the task - he had an amazing recovery from having had his shin stitched up on the first day where he flipped over in goal. Second was young French gun Laurent Thevenot, and Czech Dan Vyhnalik in 3rd. Also Gerolf was in goal, which added to his amazing overall lead. If he keeps going like that, he might not have to fly the last day of the comp and still win. With Tom in 2nd, the Austrian team is way ahead of all the other teams.

1 Kommentar:

Anonym hat gesagt…

Dear Corrinna,
I understand your worries about your weight when flying through strong headwind. But do me one favour, stay like you are! Ballast besides can be a real nasty thing. At least you have to be able to get rid of it when nessesary or at least at landing. And this is kind of tricky. Smaller Glider? What on weak days? Compeating whith guys who can squeese potatoes is tough enough, just dont compare yourself whith them, you can only loose.
Have fun and stay high!
wolfgang