Saturday 16th Feb - DSGC down under

Omarama Day 6
At yesterday's briefing, there was rain forecast for today, so we were a little surprised when soarable weather was predicted at this mornings briefing.
The south westerly wind was dropping off and weak thermals were expected providing the temperature got up to 20C. So whilst we waited for the morning overcast to decide what to do, yesterdays flights were analysed in great detail., followed by a briefing on tephigrams by Phil.
By 1330, we were at the gliders looking at the sky, when rain started falling, presumably from one of the weak fronts that had struggled to get over the Main Divide.- but it did start a clearance going.
Jill and Gabriel were first to launch in Duo discus DD, and for some reason Gabriel pulled the bung at 800 ft. There was then a 40 minute struggle to regain launch height. And we then waited for reports of other gliders succeeding to get away.

After a second launch at 1615, the ridges were not working and some weak thermals were struggling to get to the top of the ridges.
Two hours were spent polishing rocks mainly between 4000 and 5000 ft, and eventually we gave up the struggle after 125 km.
Nice Reflections on Lake Ohau

We've had a great week at Omarama with in excess of 20 hours flying in a variety of weather conditions and fantastic scenery.  A great place for gliding.