Day 2/ Nationals Sept 15th

Today the winds forecast was higher then the previous day. Weatherwise we have been under the influence of High Pressure, but it's to move out of our area, and a closed Low Pressure area to move in. This is forecast to give us some wind and maybe a thunderstorm or two. And yes, the wind came in today. A tight pressure gradient the culprit.

We went up to launch as usual, and the task commitee set a task for 112km race north with the wind. It was quite calm early on, but as the wind techs launched before the window opened for competition you could tell it just wasn't like the previous days. No one was really climbing out and the wind speed on launch was increasing. Once the window opened about 20 comp pilots launched, but you could see there was penetration issues, and no one was climbing out easily. One of the wind techs, Vail's very own Tomas Pecinka, climbed out on one thermal that took him 5 miles north of launch and to 12,000 msl. From there it would have been a little hard to make the start cylinder into the wind near launch, as the wind was now blowing a steady 18 mph with peak wind of 25 mph. Many pilots with non comp wings were not moving forward anymore and parked into the wind.

Kevin decided to call the task. I never got off the ground, which I was not too disappointed considering the conditions.

Tomorrow doesn't look good for a task, but we will see. I will keep you posted.

Cheers.