Monday 8th August 2011 – second competition day, with strong winds!
In the morning I heard familiar sound from the sky: Junkers 52 flew just over us, but it was a shame that it didn’t do a low flyby like last year.
I have been here more than a week now and I’ve seen only one (good) flying day. I think it would be great if we could get into action finally. The normal briefing time was postponed to 12:00 and soon after that grid was ready but wind was getting stronger and stronger. Grid was closing at 14:00, but around one o’clock Bernd got again an official weather warning of strong winds blowing around 70 km/h. The warning was valid until the evening. I went outside to take some “wind-photos” and Hubi (our “video guy”) noticed that one of the flagpoles was already fallen down. Quite soon other flags were taken down so that there wouldn’t be any more damage. Also some of the tents were put down, just as a precaution. Right after that day was cancelled for both classes. Later I was sitting in not-so-warm container and watching how people were securing their gliders into ground, it was raining and the wind was really strong and shaking the container. That felt like a proper storm.
Some might ask why the day wasn’t cancelled earlier. Perhaps in Nationals the decision would have been made earlier, but this is World Championships and the organization can’t cancel the day too easily. And we still have to have four flying days to have a valid competition, so we have to try every day.
In the afternoon we borrowed Axel’s car and went to Freudenstadt for a lunch and to do some shopping with Hubi and Hannah. We had lunch at the marketplace, very close to the area where we had the opening party. We ended up in very German restaurant with “biergarten”. If you have been in such places you might know what the waiter was wearing – proper lederhosen of course! Food (and beer) was anyway great. In Kaufland we saw quite many people from the airfield. We didn’t have that much to buy; I found one nice cucumber and Hannah was happy with her 5 bananas.
Rest of the evening went at the airfield. First hanging out in the hangar with Kathy (USA Team Captain), Hubi, Brian, and Marina, we were talking how weak the flag pole must have been since it broke just like that in the morning. Of course it had nothing to do with the magnificent USA flag and its size ;-)
Later we enjoyed the warmth of the club house. Obviously quite many had found their inner child… soon I would have found myself playing that table game as well but I felt like going home early.
Last year we had bottle of Jägermaister in the container – hmmm…should I bring one there this year as well and give some (or lot) of that to Bernd. Would that connect him better with God of the weather?
