Competition News

SRS BGD Edition – Task 1

Text by Soner Yorgun
After three days grounded by strong winds in Piedrahita, we finally made it to the Peña Negra launch, hoping for a good task. At first it didn't look promising: firm southerly wind blowing in from behind, together with high cloud cover and crisp air. Within a couple of hours, though, the wind shifted northerly, allowing safe launches, and a challenging 58 km task was set.

Thermals along the ridge after takeoff were weak and broken. The initial cloud base — slightly above 2,000 m — didn't allow much vertical distance to climb anyway, so after gaining some height along the ridge, I quickly joined the group out in the flats to search for better climbs, a higher cloud base, and a good position for the air start. After a reasonably good start, we still had to work weak thermals and a strong headwind toward turnpoint 1, 22 km west of the start point. I got quite low in this first part of the race and was passed by dozens of pilots with better height, but the thermals got stronger around a cluster of small hills out in the flats, and I managed to climb back to cloud base. From there, getting to turnpoint 1 was a real battle against 20+ km/h headwind — hunting for lifty lines and staying in the very core of the thermals to avoid drifting back significantly.

When I finally tagged turnpoint 1, I noticed I was now with the remaining small lead group, since the pilots ahead were either desperately low or had already bombed out. The leg to turnpoint 2 ran the opposite direction, with tailwind, so I decided to push on and leave the others behind, thinking it would be a fast, easy flight back toward Piedrahita. I was wrong. In the meantime, the high cloud cover had increased, slowing the thermals. I even flew past one thermal, gambling that I'd find a better one over the hills — I didn't, and landed before reaching Piedrahita. The pilots who stayed patient behind me caught the day's last thermals and got past turnpoint 2, but no one reached goal.

A very difficult, technical task with plenty of lessons learned — though I don't regret pushing forward .

Ranking
15. Soner Yorgun
29. Sven Albert
34. Michael Heberlein
53. Artem Malyshev
59. Marco Vergari
84. Raphael Oerer
112. Jan Rindlisbacher