Great conditions but poor personal performance
Tracklog
Results
Really poor race from me today... Conditions were great, but the mistakes all mine. Followed the EN-D gliders off at the start, but lower.... Hit the first turnpoint at YRMAMA easily (who names these things?), and topped up back in the reliable climb in the big valley to the north of launch.
Then for some reason my thinking turned off, and I meandered out into the valley into wind too low, having seen some of the earlier pilots pick up seemingly reliable thermals out over the flats. Yes, the ones on the EN-D gliders who seem to be able to waft around picking up thermals wherever they like. My Ozone Delta is no slouch and has a great glide still, but it is no match for an Mantra 4 or Skywalk Poisen.
Tagged the second turnpoint out over BADGER, then instead of turning straight around and making a sprint back to the safety of the hill at full speed, I tried to go direct to the third turnpoint at TOWERS, hoping to pick something up on the way on the lower spines. In theory, this is an OK strategy at Marshall, you can often get climbs low down over the spines and work your way up. Not today.
Landed about 2 miles from the landing field, and the redeeming story of the day was two teenagers who were hanging out where I landed. We had a great chat with my interviewing them about their lives in the way that fathers do to teenage boys....trying to glean some sense of weather I'm doing the right job with my own two elementary age boys...
The older kid offered to carry my heavy glider bag (my Impress 2 harness weighs 8kg) all the way to the local school which was on the main road. So these were the definitely the good sort of teenagers! Timing was perfect to get picked up by Scott MacCloud had also had a bad day and was tasked with retrieve.
A disappointing performance personally but a fun day.
Lesson learned 1: Get higher in the thermal you are in now, not in the thermal you think you might find next.
Lesson learned 2: Fly on speedbar into wind to tag turnpoints where the thermals are not certain.
Lesson Learned 3: Understand the geography around the turnpoints better. I later created this little diagram of how I should have flown the course, with the routes in red dotted lines, transition distances, and likely or known thermals shown in pink. I'm now putting together a little kit of colored Sharpie markers and photo paper, and will get a plastic sleeve to velcro it on my flight deck. Doing this before competitive tasks will force me to step through the task in a more visual way, rather than just getting stuck into the beeping electronic madness that precedes paragliding competition preparation. I'd seen people handwrite a little task list before, but making it a diagram reminded my the maps from my days competitive orienteering years ago, and I used orienteering symbols for takeoff and goal.
Lesson Learned 4: When thermalling, pay more attention to height you want to reach, rather than your climb rate, or fixating on when you can leave to race off for the next turnpoint. I redesigned my Flymaster thermal screen as a result of this insight, making the vario a dial rather than a number to stop obsessing about climb rate, making Altitude Gain a more prominent field, increasing the size of the thermal map, and adding Thermal Duration and Thermal Top field to encourage me to be more patient at really working each thermal to the top.
Then for some reason my thinking turned off, and I meandered out into the valley into wind too low, having seen some of the earlier pilots pick up seemingly reliable thermals out over the flats. Yes, the ones on the EN-D gliders who seem to be able to waft around picking up thermals wherever they like. My Ozone Delta is no slouch and has a great glide still, but it is no match for an Mantra 4 or Skywalk Poisen.
Tagged the second turnpoint out over BADGER, then instead of turning straight around and making a sprint back to the safety of the hill at full speed, I tried to go direct to the third turnpoint at TOWERS, hoping to pick something up on the way on the lower spines. In theory, this is an OK strategy at Marshall, you can often get climbs low down over the spines and work your way up. Not today.
Landed about 2 miles from the landing field, and the redeeming story of the day was two teenagers who were hanging out where I landed. We had a great chat with my interviewing them about their lives in the way that fathers do to teenage boys....trying to glean some sense of weather I'm doing the right job with my own two elementary age boys...
The older kid offered to carry my heavy glider bag (my Impress 2 harness weighs 8kg) all the way to the local school which was on the main road. So these were the definitely the good sort of teenagers! Timing was perfect to get picked up by Scott MacCloud had also had a bad day and was tasked with retrieve.
Lesson learned 1: Get higher in the thermal you are in now, not in the thermal you think you might find next.
Lesson learned 2: Fly on speedbar into wind to tag turnpoints where the thermals are not certain.
Lesson Learned 3: Understand the geography around the turnpoints better. I later created this little diagram of how I should have flown the course, with the routes in red dotted lines, transition distances, and likely or known thermals shown in pink. I'm now putting together a little kit of colored Sharpie markers and photo paper, and will get a plastic sleeve to velcro it on my flight deck. Doing this before competitive tasks will force me to step through the task in a more visual way, rather than just getting stuck into the beeping electronic madness that precedes paragliding competition preparation. I'd seen people handwrite a little task list before, but making it a diagram reminded my the maps from my days competitive orienteering years ago, and I used orienteering symbols for takeoff and goal.
Lesson Learned 4: When thermalling, pay more attention to height you want to reach, rather than your climb rate, or fixating on when you can leave to race off for the next turnpoint. I redesigned my Flymaster thermal screen as a result of this insight, making the vario a dial rather than a number to stop obsessing about climb rate, making Altitude Gain a more prominent field, increasing the size of the thermal map, and adding Thermal Duration and Thermal Top field to encourage me to be more patient at really working each thermal to the top.