For a 100 year drought, it's certainly raining a lot here! There has been no rain for months, and it has now rained every day of the comp. The week leading up to the comp had been getting more and more unstable with big development in the afternoons, but hadn't actually overdeveloped too badly. The forecast for the rest of the week looks pretty grim and the bad weather looks like staying with us.
The day dawned cloudy but soon cleared and at 10:00am it looked ok and everyone was sent up the hill to the north launch with a good breeze blowing. A 69 km task was set to the south with one turnpoint. Soon after the launch window opened it began to lightly rain and Billo made sure that today all of the vehicles were quickly driven down. This left about 50 - 60 pilots on the hill in the rain with no cars. Most waited a few hours and then flew their gliders to the landing paddock. The only wind on launch was from squalls and was very light. Three pilots messed up their launches in the challenging conditions, with no pilots injuries and only minor glider damage.
I was roped into driving for a team left without a car or driver, and of course, only three pilots got away and one was mine! These three launched in the first ten or so before the rain started. I drove the first 50kms in very heavy rain, and then the rest with intermittent showers. However, there had been no rain where Martin had landed.
Jon Durand Jnr made goal, Tim Cummings on his Litesport landed 10km short and Martin Pfeffer was 15km short. Once again about 20 pilots walked down the hill, leaving the gliders packed up on launch.
With so few pilots on course, the day was again cancelled.