Sunday dawned with a low cloudbase and clouds scudding across the sky at a great rate of knots. I was surprised to get a call from Watty on top of Ballaugh with Martin to say it was light there…but they were going to give it a go. Got a further call about an hour later from Watty to say he had got to Ramsey Grammar School for about 8.2 k…Fantastic flight and I look forward to his write up. This is the longest flight so far this year and beats my best of last year too.. and I think 1st place in the league?…Well done Watty..
Watty recalls the flight as follows:
"Well ace flight on Sunday, not got the time now to do a full write up, but the basic facts are as follows; Cloud base on the hill about 250-300 foot ATO (ed – less than 1100 asl!). Wind cock on, quite light on the ground. Soared and scratched a little until at cloud base, then the climb was easy steady 2’s all the way up to 371m ATO out infront of the leading edge of the cloud. Then decided to go for it, took about 15-20 mins to get to the school, a steady decent of about.5-.7 with just a few tiny bits of lift along the way. Anyway, well bloody chuffed"
I Eventually I managed to get to the hill for about 5pm. Joined by Martin and Giles. It was surprisingly light, 6-12mph, but the sea out front was showing an awful lot more wind with white horses everywhere. Took off and went down, landing at the quarry. Took off again and got a nice climb that enabled me to get back to take off. Had a chat, watched Martin go down, and then watched Giles go down. Took off again and got some very strong climbs that took me to cloud base for the first time this year. It was very low…220m ATO! At this point I started to go backwards! There was a lot more wind higher up and the air was very lively to say the least. Headed back a field on top to find smoother air and then struggled to get down. Eventually got down in one piece.
Strange, strong day.