SAFA Skysailor Magazine

23 March | April 2022 SKY SAILOR Launch at BMIA opened at 1pm. Lift was blue and patchy in the start gate and thermal cores were moving around a lot. Essentially, the entire field took the first start at 2pm, just as clouds started to develop down the course line. Jonny led the pack for the majority of the first leg, with Trent, Scott, and I close on his heels. The cu’s lined up well on the way to the first TP, with tight and punchy cores of 7-800ft/min, topping out over 8000ft as we sped down the course line with the strong tailwind. However, clouds became sparser and ~30km from the first TP, we hit the blue and things slowed down. Most of the field converged just after the first TP in the blue, before climbing out under a developing cloud ~50km from goal. From this position we were confident to make goal, perhaps needing one last climb before final. Trent led out from cloudbase as we dove out over the forest towards Gilgandra. There was a large patch of overdevelopment (OD) and a CuNim building to our east, making its way towards course line. Our glide numbers fell as the OD encroached. Lift weakened significantly, and the wind switched east, so we had to battle a solid crosswind. Attila took a slightly different line further west and managed to avoid the worst of the sink, crossing the finish line first while the rest of us struggled low in weak lift and strong crosswind. I was a little higher and hit a light climb 8km out from goal, just enough to make it into the goal cylinder. The remaining pilots landed just short.” Overall scores . Day 7 Task 7, ‘The Rogallo’ The penultimate task via a great write-up from Craig Taylor, one of the lead pilots today: “Day 7 and our 7th consecutive task with light winds and blue skies. A closed quadrilateral course back to BMIA of 137km in the shape of a Rogallo wing was thought up by the clearly rather bored task committee. Strong climbs to 10000ft were promised, however, it became clear straight off the rope that the oppressive inversion would instead make the day a slow and tedious one. The field was packed together like sardines under a 4000ft ceiling, all jostling for position, and the first start gate came and went with no takers. The field moving off lethargically on the second at 2:30pm. Trent charged out ahead and found the climbs for much of the first leg, with the inversion slowly lifting to 5000ft. After rounding the first TP, Scott managed to find a boomer to 7000ft, quickly joined by the lead gaggle, whilst the rest continued to struggle under the inversion for much of leg 2. Those patient enough to hang in the 100-ups and doddle along course were finally, and rather suddenly, rewarded with clouds and Day 6 briefing Blue sky on Task 6 Photos: Courtesy Vicki Cain