Last 2 Days (Tasks 4 and 5)

My rubbish performance the day before saw me drop from 7th to 17th... Much to do! And sorry for the lack of pics but I am writing this from work!

Some videos of each day of the comp are available on the links below courtesy of the French comps website http://gcvl.free.fr
Videos

With a stable forecast we had two tasks set and they called the longer of the two with a 16:00 start zig zagging along the ridges for 112.4km. Curt Warren was first off the hill around 15:00 after two parawafters had launched and proved it to be stay-uppable! Gaggles formed ans few broke away as the useable climbs were restricted to above 1600m altitude and few and far between. I launched and struggled to get up for 15mins before evntually climbing to 1900m to join the gaggle. When the start passed no-one seemed in a rush to start so I bimbled off staying high and trying to make slow progress as I went. Only a few notable others were really pushing and we were never far apart To cut a Loong story short, after a few hours in the air the day became too stable to continue and the field generally glided out. Mario won with 94km followed by Gerd Hoenhuber, Fabien Agenes then me. Small recompense but a decent effort today anyhow. We were retrieved late as most of the field were dotted all around the range. We got back for food at midnight!

Story of the day had to be Curt taking a leek in the air then getting his tinkle caught in the zipper of his harness. He perservered for hours trying to stay in the air to sort it out as it was too painful for him to get upright for landing... Eventually he found a good grass field to crash land into on his chest. It turned out to be a school field and just as the kids were letting out. Poor guy! The local doc wouldn't touch it so he had to cut his harness up to get out and was ambulanced off to the local A&E for a 4-hour ordeal.

Sadly I have no pics to show!!

The last day was forecast to be as stable as the previous but turned out to have little puffs of cumulus forming over the higher peaks of the Belle Garde Mountains aroun 2300m. A similar zig zag was set and the day started late also despite the evening presentation and meal booking! I raced across the ridges fairly low after making a terrible start 1000ft below most of the field but caught them up by the penultimate turnpoint where I climbed out to 2700m! I set off for final glide from here with 29km to go and a 17.6 glide angle... At the last turnpoint the glide had improved to 15:1 and 14km left so for safety I styed on a ridge to catch one more climb to be sure! Sod's law came into force and no climb appeared and as the glide increased to around 28:1 I had to leave and make the best of a bad job! Mario apparently glided behind me from the same point and saw me head for the ridge.. "Zat ridge never works!" he told me... "I got somzing from ze gorge and made eet een eazzily!" He gloated! Ten made goal on the last day and Mario won the comp outright... I placed 11th overall.

I headed straight back for work but return for more punishment after the 3rd July to Laragne before the Pre-Euros in Ager! See you then