The day dawned with a blue sky and gentle NW wind. For the first time this week, we actually managed to get to the runway by 9:15am. But we still weren't early enough - Des winched up first and got away at 10:30am .. but none of the rest of us were ready. Well might you ask what we were doing between 9:15 and 10:30am. Well, I had an interview to complete for the film, Ewa had an interview to do in German, and we all had to decide on a goal, based on the wind direction we could see, and fill in the paperwork required for world records. And somehow we always seem to lose time in the mornings, it might have something to do with operating at altitude (for us Capies) or just something peculiar to De aar, but I'm finding my thoughts particularly woolly in the morning, regardless of the number of cups of coffee consumed.

With a forecast for NW20 with W40 at altitude, we set a goal at Aliwal North (256) for the Ladies' Declared Goal record. The ladies (Ewa and Des) would try for the goal, the boys (Pete, Greg, Nevil) would fly along the same route as support. There wawn't enough wind for a chance to go 370km (men's declared goal) or 462km (men's open distance).

We hurried to get into the air, but the thermals were intermittent, and it took most of us many tow attemps to get away. I was alternating between standing on the runway ready to tow, and unclipping to get into my tow vehicle to tow up someone else so that I wouldn't have to wait so long in the permanent queue for Arnold's winching services. Many pilots were just towing up, turning around, and landing back at the beginning of the runway. 

Ewa did not have a good day... every tow was a dud, and she eventually stood down when the wind increased.

Although Des started off so well, and stayed high for a while, she glided into a sinkhole at 35km and went down. Pete continued on the task line, and got some great climbs to cloudbase, were he froze his backside off. It was noticeably chilly above 3000m. Pete continued past Colesburg to 131km.

I took a 'tiger-line' downwind instead of following the Colesburg road, and I made it to Noupoort before my luck ran out and I glided from 3500m down to the ground at 99km. Landing was surprisingly easy, as the wind on the ground was very gentle. 

To get an idea of what things are like here, you can view my tracklog.