Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Forbes Day 3

Today was looking just that little bit to good with clouds starting early in the morning. A short 141km task was set to Borrowa in hopes that we would get a task in before it overdeveloped. I did the first start with Attila,Carl,Blinky and a few others. I managed to get out in front with Attila after 70kms before hitting some rain. I was actually making a video and thought Attila was above me climbing still and when I got high he was gone. I thought he may have gone straight through the rain thinking the task was going to be stopped. Considering we were out in front and the day was overdeveloping fast this could have seemed like a good move. So instead of flying 90 degrees to courseline I went straight through the rain and got very wet..Hmmm I got low and when I hit a thermal the glider was just falling out of the sky as you can see on the video. I spent a long time just trying to stay in the air but kept getting rained. I herd the task was still on so worked hard and eventually got back up after sometime. It was now overcast all the way to goal with a big storm moving in from the southwest. I drifted in a light thermal untill I had 13:1 and left on final glide. I made it easy but found many gliders at goal when I arrived. I knew the rest of my team was down so I started to pack me gear up fast. What happened next was just and amazing show of power from mother nature. As I was pulling battens out in my glider I happended to notice some dust blowing. I had a better look and noticed a gust front coming and yelled out to everyone to pack up fast and brace themselves. I told them it was a five minute warning but as I watched it I saw it coming fast. I then told them all they had a 30 second warning and I would say in exactly 30 seconds the gust front hit. I had manged to close my wings nearly when it hit the had to drrop the glider on the ground. I then noticed everyone having troubles hanging onto their gliders. I saw one get flipped upside down so I quickly raced for my other glider that Carl is flying and helped him hold onto it. After a couple of minutes the wind backed off a little so I said lets drop it to the ground which we did sucessfully. He jumped on the nose and I raced over to help Jonas with his glider. next thing I see is Tony's glider get taken up and over all the gliders and smash into the ground then picked up again and taken another 30 mtrs before exploading into the ground another time. Then gerolf goes upside ontop of Dave's glider and then Blinky gets flipped onto Attila's and the goal car. The gust front must have reached 40knts and lasted for more than 5 minutes. It may have been the most the most damage I have ever seen In hang gliding in one day. Tony cut 2 fingers down to his bones and another 2 just trying to hold his glider down before he let go of it.. Wow what a day well it is bedtime for me as it 2am and I have to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. Here is todays Video.