Monday 6th July - Course week

It was drizzling out of a low cloud base, and there was a howling southerly bringing damp cold air to North Hill when the course assembled. The drizzle turned into steady rain as the morning progressed. Instructors Martin and Stu kicked off with a thorough briefing and then entertained the troops with a series of high quality talks on such diverse subjects as instruments, winch launches and air space. During the latter, one particularly keen course member asked whom he should call if he accidentally entered the airway!! A prize is on offer for the first correct answer. Neither Martin nor Stu could provide one! Much hopeful peering at the grey sky and the continuing horizontal rain led to the conclusion that the most comfortable place at North Hill remained the interior of the club house, especially as by now it was lunch time. More hopeful, or rather hopeless, peering followed. So  it was back to more theory, this time with a multi media demo of aero tows and the Club’s Flarm presentation. The simulations with which this ended produced a few worried frowns, but Martin reassured his listeners with a resounding finishing line: DON’T PANIC!! By now, it was abundantly clear that the gliders would have to remain in the hangar for the rest of the day. All departed, promising each other that tomorrow would be a good flying day. - WWF

News from Competition Enterprise
Day 3. The task essentially meant flying to a point north or south of SUT and then flying the opposite direction to another point and repeating a few times. There was a warm front coming through around 3/4 o'clock so launching started earlyish.
I believe the forecast wind was for a WSW so I had decided to go north first a few k and then head across wind to east Anglia where the weather was forecast to be amazing. After turning 5k north of SUT it became very evident that the wind was a lot stronger than I had anticipated and pushing south was incredibly hard so I gave up with my plan and dashed down wind towards Middlesbrough until I ran out of land but I turned the sea which gave me an extra 50 bonus points. 
ran out of land.... (Liam)
The run home into wind at this point looked reasonable and the climbs were good but with every direction possible into land facing a very strong wind the sky the push was impossible with an average ground speed of 5kph I decided not to risk landing out on the moors and so stopped pushing to find a nice field... 
Nice field.. flat sky (Liam)
A very memorable flight with some amazing scenery made better by the fact an Arcus turboed overhead of me, and the fact that my retrieve crews car keys were in my pocket.... Liam