Thursday 18th August 2011 – 12th Competition day – hot day

The day was really hot already in the morning. Bernd told in met briefing that instable air mass was coming from the west, which could mean thunderstorms in the afternoon and even at following night. Sky was first blue, and then a big blob of alto cumulus spread over us, killing all thermals. We all had our radios on and some entertainer wanted to keep the mood up and played on the frequency once in awhile short samples of few well selected songs. Some of them reminded me of UK boys’ performances on Sing star contest.

Launches were postponed, and even sniffer had to relight. In some point Christof wanted to give something to do for the Club class and so they were removed from the grid. Later we were still waiting in the grid, and because of the heat we felt like melting and were lying around gliders. Some of crew (Canada) were even snoring, some of us enjoyed the sun and some (from southern countries) stayed under the wing (wisely). We told stories how great it would be in Räyskälä right that moment and sit in Särkijärvi instead…that would be nicer place to wait in the heat for the towings to start.

At 14:15 standard clsss was towed (towings were postponed 2:15 h after all) right after when Brian told that thermals are about 1 m/s. 

I totally forgot to mention that finally we got valid championship for both classes (=4 valid days), so even day’s headline says that it is 12th competition day, Club class has now 7 valid days and Standard class 6 valid days. Unfortunately God of weather hasn’t been very friendly with us, and pilots have seen quite many tricky days. Of course it would be great if all days would be perfect gliding days. But after all (I like to say this in the competitions) this is World Championships and pilots must be able to fly in different conditions.

It was really hot day and sky was blue until the evening. When we were running errands with Axel in Baiersbronn, the temperature was 31,5 C. We had to do some shopping, we got samples of competition t-shirts and also chose trophies for prize giving ceremony. All had landed when we came back, so I didn’t see any finishes today.

During the evening (and while scoring is still running) we have results on big screen in the briefing hangar. Team Netherlands was cheering when Tim Kuijpers went on top of the Club class results. It’s nice to have some other flags on top three than only German (sorry Uli :-). German team has done really good job anyway, as all of their Club class pilots are on top of the results with 200 points differences only. And familiar face from JWGC09 – Felipe Levin – is leading the results in Standard class. Łukasz is already 500 points behind him…

It was quiet evening, organization had “Pizza Thursday” in the hangar and we went home really early. I saw only few people in the bar. I think everybody was resting after yesterday and getting ready for Friday.