SAFA Skysailor Magazine

31 WINTER 2026 | June-July-August SKY SAILOR My personal day highlight was cracking 100km/h groundspeed for the first time ever – equally exciting and horrifying. Eventually, I landed short of Bingara (going straight down, luckily not back- wards, as others reported over the radio). I tucked in beside an old cow shed to hide from the wind and waited for a retrieve while watching a lonely wing drift over- head. Tracking identified my crewmate, Jake Muggleton. I’d also spotted another pilot, Hammed, land nearby. Having seen no other wings overhead and heard no more incoming, I was satisfied with our Cane Toad performance and put my phone away. I was wrong. Two pilots had managed to claw their way past the 100km mark beyond Bingara and connect with an entirely different sky further north – with a higher base, big climbs, and screaming tailwinds. Those two were Felix Alary and Lukasz Gryzb. Felix, one of last year’s ‘up and coming’ pilots, is the kind of keen young gun whose enthusiasm for paragliding borders on religious devotion. Alongside him was Bar- barian co-captain Lukasz Gryzb. Together, they pushed all the way out past 200km toward North Star. Out of 132 pilots, the only two to break the 100km barrier that day. Back at HQ, the excitement amongst the Barbarians was palpable! By the end of Day 1, the World Barbarian Bugs sat on 79.9 points, far ahead of the Cane Toads on 40.4 and the NSW Cockroaches on 37.8. The comp was officially on! Day 2: The Cane Toad hop-back After Friday, Day 2 looked a little friendlier, although it quickly became clear it wasn’t one of those ‘everyone goes far’-type days. Pilots ended up scattered everywhere, from bomb-outs in Big East to flights pushing beyond 200km, with gliders dotted from Barraba all the way towards the Queensland border. Good lines were rewarded and bad lines punished. Height mattered. Timing mat- tered. Getting past Bingara mattered. Some pilots found booming climbs and incredible late-day conditions, while others hit sink, got low at the wrong moment, and never reconnected. Conditions also remained dynamic enough that some Launch, fly, land, and repeat