12 Januar 2012

Day 6: 201 km - Friday 13th already?



Thanks to Jamie for the picture of me landing at goal two days ago - doesnt the RX3 look nice?
Just a brief report, as I still have to fix the zipper of my harness. It was another long task of 201km around one turnpoint called "Bumf" - as I learnt, the Canadians would have had the loudest laugh about this exact description of the area.
At briefing, we missed Vicki and Attila, instead we had some VIPs - Elvis and Priscilla visited us and brought us the task! Another 201 km day, flying in the blue. But first, some other problems had to be solved...
I had not completely set up yet when a dust devil ripped through our gliders. It pulled up the glider behind me and threw it down on mine. The other glider was fine, but one of my battens had been crushed, the carbon fibre splintered. I got nervous. Luckily, Scott Barrett, who had set up next to me and saw my shocked face, helped me. He went away to his car, put a piece of stainless stell into the batten, rapped a whole lot of tape around it, and it could be used again!
When I got ready to launch, the next misfit happened - the slider of my harness zipper broke in two! Now I got really nervous, as the starting procedure had already begun. A race against the time! And it was Scott again who came up with a solution. He pulled out a selection of differently sized zipper sliders, amongst them the right size for mine! Then he showed me how to take the bottom one off and how to put the new one in. And it worked until goal! Just now I need to stitch the bottom up to fix it.
When I was about to go, my radio had unlocked and I was on the wrong frequency... how much can go wrong on one day? With UHF channels, I had to find the frequency number again to get in touch with my team.
After all of the above, I was really glad when Jamie and Dave came over, calmed me down and stayed with me when I was in the launch line. It took me a while into the flight before I could shake off the pre launch stress. It felt like it was Friday the 13th already yesterday...
I got back really late, and today will be another big day, so I better start fixing my harness!
Attila won the day yesterday, with Curt Warren 2nd and Jonas Lobitz 3rd and Julia Kucherenko in smoking 4th place (she was first across the goal line!). Overall, it is Rohan ahead of Attila and Adam Stevens.

Keine Kommentare: