Day 1
As there was quite some mist in the valley of Zeltingen-Rachtig the first morning of the competition, the briefing from 10h00 was already delayed until 12h00. At noon, the program committee decided to drive to the flying spot near Burgen. Some pilots with among others myself, walked up to take-off and had the first wind-dummy flights of the day. My first flight took exactly 6'54". As the conditions seemed absolutely perfect for a great bomb-out day, the task committee decided to set a task with one turnpoint in Mehringen (17km) and goal in Losheim am See (47km). Of course, this was overly optimistic and all everybody did in these poor conditions was bombing out. After my second flight of exactly 6'57", me and Phil decided to autostop back to Kloster Machern. It took us one hour to get there and we finished the ride with a nice salad.
Day 2
More sunshine and better thermal conditions on the weatherforecast for the second day of the competition. Again, the task was at the flying site in Burgen. Soon after the briefing, we went up and not long thereafter, the first pilots took off. It indeed seemed a better day than yesterday, and a lot of pilots managed to climb in a nice big gaggle. Olivier made goal, Geoffrey almost made goal and Constant almost got to the first turnpoint after taking a restart. I was able to climb up to 854m but then lost the thermal and decided to fly back to take-off in order to try to catch a second one that would bring me higher and further. Unfortunately, that second thermal never came and after 38 minutes of flight I had to land. Too bad i decided to come back, because if I would have decided to fly in the direction of the first turnpoint, i probably would just have landed outside the minimum distance circle (as Google Earth showed me), which would have been good for my score, because a lot of people will probably have minimum distance. But anyway, I had a nice thermal flight with my new Icaro Maverick and i also got my first 2.7ms/up with it. It's a good start. Should I be higher than 800m tomorrow, i think i will decide to fly into the direction of the first turnpoint... We'll see.
Day 3
No mist in the morning, and better thermals predicted for the day. It looked quite nice for flying in Burgen again. I was able to start quite early for the task, and got a nice climb up to 650m on the right side of take-off. Not much, but hey... beginning competition pilots like me are already happy with this ;-) After my first climb, I headed for the left side of take-off, as I wanted to join the gaggle that was flying over there. Suddenly, some pilots started heading in the direction of the first turnpoint and although I was quite low, i decided to follow them. I wish I hadn't... soon I was alone and I lost altitude quite fast, resulting in a bomb out at 2.5km from take-off (resulting in a 'minimum distance' score). Lessons learned: be patient, don't leave the gaggle, be patient, fly with others, be patient, gain height first, be patient, make distance. Oh yeah... and most important of all: be patient when flying XC!
Day 4
A lot of pilots in goal today for the 23.6km task in Klusserath! The beginning of the task was not that difficult, as it was completely doable just by soaring to the waypoints. Getting to goal was a bit more difficult, as it was about 15km behind take-off. I learned from my lessons yesterday, and i stayed patient. It paid off: for the first time in my paragliding career, i managed to climb to cloudbase (about 1300m) with a group of other pilots. Arriving there, i must admit that i felt quite uncomfortable because my vario was telling me it was always going up without me doing too much... so in some kind of panic reaction i pulled big ears and lost some altitude. While I was doing that, the other pilots from my gaggle had already left the thermal, heading for goal... so i was behind... and unfortunately, I had to land at 3.5km from goal... hitting the barbwires with my harnass *ahum*... Lessons learned: 1) before being happy about your flight, focus on your landing first and don't land in the barbwires if there's a very big field to land in. 2) If you are in a gaggle and are high enough to reach goal in one transition, then go for goal, especially if all other pilots already made that decision much faster than you! But anyhow, this was probably the best flight I already had in my 3 years of paragliding: a 20km task distance and 11km straight line from take-off to my landing spot. I hope I can confirm this kind of flying in my upcoming flights...