ITS ALL OVER-Updated

Hello sports fans.

Apologies for not blogging earlier, arrived home at 1am and slept the sleep of the blessed until 11am. My adrenaline suplies completely depleted. Spent the day with family and catching up with the 88 business emails waiting my urgent attention.

Damn, but dont you hate it when work gets in the way of gliding!!!

Yesterday was the "longest day". Not only in the tasks over 350km but the number of landouts in remote spots. 9 aero retrieves with the last glider landing back at end of civil twilight-30 minutes which we all know is the latest we can fly. yea right!

Longest road retrieve was probably Taumaranui. about 4 hour round trip. Yea I know-short by Omarama standards :-) .....they arrived back at 1am.

The results are all up on the scoring website along with a goodly asortment of photos . Jill told me at one time she had taken over 500 photos that day. That was just after the launch and no arrival shots included!!

The prizegiving went well with final arrival being Trev Terry having come from some remote spot just north of National Park.

Non winner type awards were
Hansells Trophy-Tony Van Dyke most meritorious Flight - Day 2 winner zero points.

The Continel Airlines Trophy-Winner of longest racing task - Brett Hunter. On the night I awarded it to incorrectly-the challenge of scoring late and me being a prat:-)
The Mike Rix Memorial Trophy-Youngest Highest Place Pilot - Dane Dickinson
The Richardson Trophy-Highest Speed during the champioships - Dane Dickinson

Veterans Trophy - Lindsey Stephens
The Swiss Trophy-2nd in Numerically Strongest Class-Lindsey Stephens

The Masterton Trohpy-Highest Placed Club Glider - NIgel McPhee/Dave Hirst

The Norge Cup-awarded to Mark Robertson

A number of trophies for the Sports/PW5 were not awarded and wait for next years competition.

The drawer for Early Bird Radio was won by David Jensen. #1
The drawer for a radio from all pilots and officials at the dinner(yep that included me) was won by Pat Driessen #12 who promptly put it up for auction, proceeds to the SAR fund. The competition raised over $800 for the local Search & rescue team.
A great effort.

The Prat in the hat had to fly down to Taupo Sunday to retrieve his Laptop carry bag and a pair of Sandals. Many thanks to Adrian Cable and his speedy RV4.
Noted a couple of chargers and items of clothing also left behind...

Other than my report to the Sailplane Racing Committee and an article for the Soaring Magazine I am done for another year.

Thanks to the many unsung heroes who made the organisation run smoothly and added to the fun factor.

Keep it up

Roy

FRIDAY - Day the Last

The weather looks great, the sun is out.
A cool morning with a light southerly has got everyone KEEN!!!!

Gridding by 12:00 for a possible earliest launch 12:30

Airspace will be shared with Paraponters using a chunk of "our" GA482.

Task A Open & Standard
Is a racing task to 142 Kaingaroa
238 Waimahor
181 National Park
117 Mokai
109 Control point & home

350+ kms

Club Racing 213km
124 Reporoa
205 Barryville
139 Kuratau
117 Mokai
Control & Home

Keep it up

Roy

THURSDAY

Rain stopped play
pluie nous a arrêté de voler
regen hield ons vliegen
雨停了我们飞行
Regen hielt uns unter
הגשם עצר אותנו לעוף
smesso di piovere, ci battenti
la lluvia nos detuvo de vuelo
No fling for us fellas inda air wakas.

Tomorrow looks like it will be a brilliant day.
Stay tuned sports fans!!!!!

Keep it up

Roy

WEDNESDAY-THEY ARE OFF!!

Even sitting in his glider on the grid our main weatherman was saying he thought there was only 10% or less for the task to be flyable.

The weather gods decided to proove him wrong and the sky looks GREAT!

They are on an AAT task max 250kms in 2 hours
225 Mangaoke
166 Arohena Hall
119 Normans Corner
All 10km circles

Club Class have
228 Sandel Road
145 Kinleith
115 Waikato River Road

96-179km in 2 hours.

One landout as at 16:47 local - HU on a strip(#221) 23 minutes drive away(according to Google maps-which is being used in the retrieve pack)

Keep it up

Roy

DAY WEDNESDAY!

Good morning Sports fans.

We are hoping that todays forecast is as wrong as previous days outlooks. Roland is looking downcast. But your Director remains positive!

Jill McCaw took some excellent photos yesterday with a lovely sequence of photos of a wheels up landing. Maybe a good article for the magazine- How to get the wheel down after a wheels up without causing back injury!

The title could be "From Wheels up to Wheels down"

The pilots meeting will be held this morning before we gather again at 12:30 for a rebrief on the changing weather situation.

Keep it up

Roy

DAY Tuesday 7pm

4 Landouts NT,XG,KR,PV,UY

The rest have finished. A bunch of happy pilots who generally agreed "it was a tough day"

Jill McCaw has arrived with a camera with a huge telephoto lens. I guess nothing will miss her zoom ability. Especially the wheels up landing of the first ASW27 home.

Scoring is underway with Standard class witha double devalued day but still over 850 points.

Check in an hour or so at soaring Spot but Looks like Dane might be first up at the prize table in the morning.

I'm off to another fantastic Taupo club BBQ-dang but the steaks are huge and delicious.

Keep it up

Roy

Day three-standard class

They have all launched.
To check how they are going go to http://map.xinqu.net/spot/index.html
7 Gliders are using SPOT.

Tasks Standard & Open 155km

A smallish task with sky only starting to "light up" at 3pm.
The task setters guess was based on a 60kph average.

Billy Walker Task (Racing)

151 Ranginui A/s
129 Tihoi Village
125 Atiamuri Bridge
109 Orakei Korako (Control point
Home'

Club Class
Same task but a 2 hour AAT with 10km circles
Minimum 107km maximum 209km.

Not flash but better than not flying.

Keep it up

Roy