SAFA Skysailor Magazine

33 WINTER 2026 | June-July-August SKY SAILOR Day 3: The Final Push By Sunday morning, everyone was starting to feel a little cooked. After two long days of flying, long retrieves, and very little downtime between it all. At the morning briefing everyone tried to figure out what daylight savings actually meant: When was briefing? Was presentation at 5 or 6pm? Which state was operating on what time? Was sunset even real anymore? Some new rules had to be clarified after the previous day, with pilots apparently spiralling down to land before the 6pm cut-off despite conditions still booming. The organisers made it clear that while the flying had been incredible, they would rather pilots prioritise safe decision-mak- ing than race the clock back to HQ. Going into the final day, many crews leant toward a slightly more conservative strategy. Unlike the previous two days (where launching early was necessary), Sunday’s forecast suggested better condi- tions would arrive later in the afternoon, so newer pilots were encouraged to be patient on launch. The Barbarians, however, committed early and got themselves into the air… a decision that ended up paying off when the wind once again strengthened and became crossed later in the afternoon. What became increasingly obvious throughout the day was how cohesively the Barbarians were flying. Rather than spreading out to get ahead, large groups of Bugs stayed together throughout the day – sometimes exploring separately, but constantly regrouping and waiting for each other in the air, sup- porting one another and steadily stacking points as a team. As the 5pm landing deadline ap- proached, more than eight Barbarians had crossed the 200km mark, many more having landed beyond 100km. Captains Coralie Werbrouck and Lukasz Gryzb sat proudly with the lead gaggle, landing together at 225km near the QLD border. Another Barbarian, Matthew Fiddes, flew an incredible 206.3km as a tandem. The standout story had to be Andrew Houghton from Tasmania. After attending SoO last year as a retrieve driver, Andrew came back this year to join the competition as a Fun Class pilot. On Saturday, he flew