Yesterday marked the first day of the annual Killarney Paragliding Classic an 8 day cross country race to goal competition. The conditions yesterday were strong and windy. I launched first before all the other competitors and got boosted huge in some really strong lift that took me almost to cloud base. The lift was fast, sharp and industrial strength, the conditions were full on and windy. My glider was surging and biting all the time and I really had to pay attention to keep her open. I took about 4 decent collapses in about 5 minutes trying to push to the front of the hill (I took 0 in two weeks flying Manilla). I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the fatal blow but it never came. At the start of the race I tried to push out onto the flats and get away from the strong winds but this was the wrong decision. Most all of the gliders that pushed out front got stuffed to the ground in strong winds and sink. When this was happening to me I dove back to a low ridge to grab a climb, this was again a bad choice. I missed the climb and was faced with a long glide out over trees so I made an untraditional decision and decided to land on the bald ridge that I was flying over.
In the end I made it a pathetic 1k away from the start cylinder, many pilots landed around this distance (though I was the only on to land on the ridge top). A hand full of pilots got away from launch on a good line and flew a portion of the 65k course, though a number of these pilots will get no score for breaking airspace regulations by flying too high. I believe 3 pilots made goal.
Today is another day and hopefully the conditions will be a bit user friendly.
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Sounds like you found some classic Killarney Pete! Keep at it mate, that first glide away from the hill is a real killer, just take everything until you are well into the flats. Go fast dude, and when you get a chance, go to www.brightopen.org and register :-D See ya soon! Benn
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