Friday 19th August 2011 – last competition day & farewell party
We expected that this would be busy day with flying, last day chores in the office and preparations for tomorrow. But it wasn’t. Oh well, of course we had lots of things to do as it was the last day, but mostly we sat inside the container.
In the morning the weather was really warm and sky was blue, but after 10 o’clock dark low clouds crawled over us from the horizon while wind was blowing stronger. Bernd saw positive things on his satellite photos (those happy pills… :-), so grid was ready and tow pilots were called to Musbach. Towings were postponed several times and after 1,5 hours of waiting, the sniffer (Brian) went to see if the weather would be any good for gliding.
While we were sitting in the container, competitors and crew were sitting outside in the grid. We had really nice show (performed by nature) as big thunderstorm passed us from the south side of the airfield. It was far enough so the sun was shining at the airfield, but still close enough so we could see the lightings and of course hear the thunder.
While we were following the thunder, I felt how excited everyone was – tangible atmosphere would perhaps describe the situation best (sorry, it’s my Finglish). I don’t know was it because of the storm, which colored the southern sky dark lilac, or was it because Axel, Bernd, Christof (nice alphabetical order by the way) were standing in a circle and pointing on the sky. When Brian landed, he said few words to Christof and again those men were standing in a circle. We wanted to hear with Hannah what the decision will be, and I felt how Team Netherlands was staring our backs with hopeful looks on their faces. Well, I have to say that at this point I hoped the day would be cancelled, as the weather didn’t look good at all, for gliding I mean.
Finally the decision was made, and people were cheering when Standard class day was cancelled. After couple of minutes the day for Club class was cancelled too. That meant loud cheering on campground, in the grid and of course the Netherlands team was pretty loud as well.
So in my words: first launch is postponed to Leszno, Poland, 2013
I was too busy to start partying in that point. Mut many of the pilots tested if the water was warm in the Swiss team pool. Of course they went there with their clothes on, and perhaps with a help of their team members.
We were ready around 17:00 and party started, and what can you tell: we had some boiled meat (or was it a big sausage) with potato salad, and my wine accompanied that meal very well. Then we danced and hugged and danced. I left after 3:00 in the morning (thank you Axel for the ride) and Tim was still playing his guitar and people were singing around him. Unfortunately somebody (no names mentioned) had to go to hospital at night, because of the broken arm.
