The Day No-One came home

Wow! What a day.
The forecast was interesting, the models showed a good day ahead, the met man a little more pessimistic but with no chance of storms....

Our task was a 3 hour AAT that got reduced to 2 1/2 as the day was slow to get going. We knew local storm cells during the evening would have effected some of the areas and the plan was to try for around 95 kmh.

The start set the mood for the task, a big overdeveloped area came up right on track to the first circle, Allan went right, I went left of the rain.
Seems there was lightning in the rain ( no storms ?) and I tip-toed around to the back where some decent cus were still around. A climb here with a gaggle put me around the first turn and ahead of Allan who was a bit stuck on the right but gaining distance. I was able to use this to feed back info to Allan on the conditions ahead for him.

Cruising toward the second area was nothing special , except a deviation around more rain. Away for the rain clouds the sky was actually quite attractive (to glider pilots).

Into the second area and another overdeveloped area, I stayed with a gaggle but was determined to get high and turn North early to get along the Prievidza East side of the valley. The info from Dingo base wasn't good, standard class were having troubles just staying up and starting and further north it was raining. I climbed slowly to a comfortable level and turned north, most of the gaggle continued East and I couldn't work out why (more later), my theory was they were perhaps trying to go far east outside the circle to get north around the weather.
As I flew north I gained enough in some average climbs to get myself to base and cruise north to the "barrier" ridge. Here the view ahead was terrible , the whole Martin valley was showers and the only brighter sky was to the East but was blue and obviously dead. Some confirmation from Dingo base got me thinking outside the typical Aussie pilot box. "Maybe I should just get high here and park for a while". This small thought paid well, I waited and climbed slowly at first and was rewarded with eventually 4 knots to cloudbase. The sky was looking brighter ahead but still not great. I felt like waiting for another 15 minutes or so for the sky to improve but I could see sunlight in the valley ahead.
I eased out into the east side of the valley and into the hills hoping the wind on the ridges would trip something off. Nothing. Still nothing. Creeping towards the sun and the third circle. I dialed up Martin airfield and was 1100ft above glide. I decided to hit the third circle, keep working north and seeing for far I could get before having to break left and head for Martin. This worked well , I held glide for quite a while and was inching towards sunlight and salvation. at about +400ft on Martin I got to ridges in the sun, a couple of bubbles and searching turns proved fruitless, I was tempted to go just one more ridge across but that would have cut off my exit to Martin and forced me into a paddock.
Turning back to Martin I made some deviations over anything that looked slightly like a thermal source but in the end the arrival at Martin was inevitable.
The story could end there but for the next hour I witnessed over 30 other gliders land, helped push and line-up gliders, arrange aerotows and generally talk gliding to lots of excited and disappointed pilots; what a hoot! Not to mention some video footage from my micro-camera. We discussed tactics and the guys going east early in the second area were probably going for distance , D'oh.
In due course my trusty crew arrived and we hot-footed it back to Prievidza. When we left there were already 3 tugs doing aerotow retrieves and the queue of gliders was still growing!

There's a rumour the guns want to cancel the day, I can't see why, it was an interesting challenge and this is the worlds.

with regards,

Mike