After muddling up my days and doing a Hike and Fly on the day which ended up being a better XC day than forecast, I was hoping for a repeat of the same today. Unfortunately this was no to be, as the base remained as low and the high cloud came in as forecast.
After a very leisurely morning waiting for the day to start, I eventually started to get ready when it seemed that there was a good chance of staying up. Unfortunately as I finished getting ready to launch the wind changed 180 degrees and meant that I had to walk to the other start. Not wanting to repack everything, I just walked with a bunched glider which was just about ok, other than being very warm in all my flying clothes.
Arriving at the alternative start, I then had to wait more until this start place started to work, however eventually I was able to launch. The thermals were all very weak, and the challenge was to get high enough to transition to the big cliffs. I came very close to managing to get enough height, but very close wasn’t quite enough and after that one chance the high cloud blocked the sun which meant that the thermals all immediately became much weaker.
I was pleased to be able to stay up for over an hour with 100% high cloud with a mixture of light soaring conditions and weak thermals. However eventually I made a mistake and lost some altitude which meant that I decided to head to land after an enjoyable flight, even if it wasn’t an XC.
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