Wednesday 31st October 2007
Three tasks were called to open the 23rd Pacific Championship this morning in Saga. As predicted the weather was fantastic with a clear sky and light surface winds. All tasks were gravity marker drops.
Task 1 was a Pilot Declared goal, Task 2 was a Fly on and the final task was a Judge Declared Goal.
The total flight distance was about 11.6km and I was in the air for 1.7 hours. The general flight direction was to the south east with most pilots flying around the 800ft mark to give them a direct track to the JDG with the intention of picking up the other two goals on the way in.
I messed up my approach slightly on the PDF and ended up with a high drop resulting in about 42m, not the opening drop I would have liked but from 500 feet and doing 18km/h it was not to bad.
The Fly on was more like what I ordered with a nice slow and low approach for a 3.4m drop. It has got to be worth some points if not very close to the winning result.
The Judge declared goal showed again why Saga winds are famous for messing with pilots heads. Most of the pack ended up struggling for enough left (Northerly) to get down to the final goal. A very light and slow surface wind started to move balloons in the right direction. In setting up to use this breeze I over shot slightly but was still in a good spot for the expected sea breeze effect as the morning went on.
Unfortunately and against my expectations, the breeze turned to more from the North and I ended up sliding off to the side by about 540m and had to watch the majority of the pack drift straight over the goal. I had expected the breeze to some more out of the south east but it was not to be.
So we are off and running, we have some points on the board and it will be a lucky dip to see where the PDG scores. If I get over 300 points for the JDG then I will be surprised.
