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6.8.2013 Tuesday – 10th competition day

Towings were going to start at 11.30, and after one hot hour of waiting in the grid, the towings started at 12.30. We heard in the briefing that the air mass is very dry, and there won’t be any clouds today. Luckily met man got that slightly wrong, and some cumulus was popping on sky during the launches.

Safety committee and safety box

By the way, I was going to tell about safety committee. Safety committee is formed at the beginning of the competition. The members of committee are always stewards and two pilots who are selected by the competitors.  Actually, nowadays usually the stewards will search for best candidates and make a proposal of two pilots. The proposal is based on the pilots’ safety history (= lack of incidents) and also they are usually good in English language. Our safety pilots are Boyd Willat (USA) and Peter Millenaar (NED). Actually, I like to think that usually safety pilots are quite outgoing and easy to approach, but still quite…well, not peaceful but definitely not “party animals” either, if you know what I mean.

We have also a safety box, which is usually decorated cheerfully. I had the honor to decorate our safety box with Leszno maps and stickers. The safety box is meant for the reports like “almost an incident” or “It was a near go!”. Stewards were quite surprised that after first blue thermal (and day of gaggles) there weren’t any notes, as those days usually do cause notes in safety box. Two days ago I heard that one note was put in the box, and yesterday just before the briefing I saw Boyd and Peter talking with one pilot (gladly I don’t remember who that was and wouldn’t tell even I would remember), they were standing heads together and clearly the discussion had a bit more serious tone than usually. We have safety minute in the briefing daily, and yesterday it was about joining the busy thermal. So those notes on safety box usually are giving a reason to have that safety minute in the morning.

The day went fast, in the grid I enjoyed my borrowed 100-400 mm lens and got my confidence back. Thanks William, I am going to hold that for Wednesday as well! I am glad that Reto Frei won today, as on previous days he has been telling me (quite direct) comments of the color of my shirt (blue). Well done Reto, winning the day I mean :-) Sadly two of my several favorites landed out, Kristian (P3, Denmark) and Enrique (EL, Germany).

In the evening Team Captains and a part of the organization had dinner with local President – or Mayor. So I was looking for some company for dinner, as of course my usual company for dinner – that’s Bob – was at the official dinner. Then I went looking for best option I could think of, the Danish team I mean, and found Jens and Chris sitting at their team tent waiting for Nicolai, Anne and Kristian coming back from the “field trip”. We waited for them and had quite late dinner at the restaurant. My stomach feeling too full I went back to the terrace and luckily found few guys (UK and DEN) having a beer and wondering why the restaurant is so empty – and actually closed.

Then suddenly the wind started blowing, it felt like a storm actually.

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