PWC Loma Bola: Task 4

After yesterday (Day 4) being cancelled due to rain it gave me a chance to rest up, clear my head and start fresh today after an early night. 

Waking up this morning to blue skies as the forecast had predicted, had all he pilots in the house excited for day 5, task 4 and what route lay ahead of us.

Conditions on take-off looked great. Nice puffy clouds were forming and our longest task yet of 83km was set. The task would have us start and touch two turn points right in front of the ridge here in Loma Bola. Then it was a long line of about 60km North to the goal over in the next valley.

I didn’t have the best start when it was time to go and remained behind the gaggle for the first couple of turn points

At this point I had to make a couple of decisions to take my own lines to catch up to the gaggle or be stuck behind, of course I chose to keep up with them.

Once I caught up I kept flying with the gaggle but I remained a little lower most of the time. The thermals were drifting a lot in the opposite direction to goal so I decided to stay low and go fast instead of getting high and moving the wrong way. It was a risky move that paid off today as I managed to stay under the leaders.

At one point I headed out to the flats alone and caught a little lift but the gaggle was still above me so I kept flying a little behind and under them so I didn’t lose the momentum of being with the leaders.

Most of the race I was flying like this, in ‘low and go’ mode until the end when two options to get to goal presented themselves.

It was either take the optimal line to the goal as the gaggle decided to do or the option that I saw and I think another couple of pilots did also. This was a longer route but I could see clouds and a very obvious convergence line.

Everywhere else was blue sky and then this nice cloud street in the valley, so naturally I headed there. I found a boosting +9m/s thermal that took me up to 3000 meters, which is the highest I’ve been all week. And from there I had a straight glide to goal.

In hindsight I wish I had understood about the leading points better and I would have pushed harder and faster to come in with an even better time ahead of the next guy. But I’m super happy with the results for today.

It was great to come into goal first, closely followed by Xavier Laporte who won the task today with his lead out points. 

Congratulations to Xavier and all the pilots in goal. It really felt like the first real day of flying and racing since we got here.

Also, I have to say thank you to the pilots who shared some pics from today to fill out the blog. I was in too much of racing mode to even think about pulling my camera out.