As 2005 draws to a close I thought I would write a few words to reflect how the year went for the club.
Weather wise it was not a good year nationally or locally but the year started well with a good turn out on Ballaugh in January with very light conditions gradually building all day. Goldie flew off to the north recording the first entry on the new XC league table…..he was to stay on top of this league for a lot longer than expected. Namely due to the usual spring thermal patch of weather not showing up. Personally I never got to cloudbase once this year and never saw a single para swarm thermalling above Snaifell either…very poor.
February’s parachute repack with Bill Morris went very well indeed, cheers Bill. I think everyone got something out of that and hope we can run it again in 2006.
Before we knew it we were all off to a wet Annecy for the annual trip…again the weather was not so good. Nice trip though and it was good to see a couple of pilots doing the triangle around the lake.
On our return we found a very successful course being run in near perfect training conditions……We gained 7 new pilots with their own gear, ready to rock! Welcome Giles, Stephen, Ean, Chris, Karl, Marty and Northy. We were also joined by the elusive Stu…..So quite a crop of new pilots, which should prove interesting next year. By my reckoning we are up to 25 equipped and capable pilots on the Island now. What that would look like on Staarvey is anyone’s guess.
As the year went on several larger XC flights began to appear on the league table notably from Jamie and Watty. Well done to them for showing us all the way to do it. Although some of the flights seem small, it is no small feat to go XC on the island especially considering the weather we have had and so I would like to congratulate everyone who entered this year, Well done. We look forward to next years league with great anticipation.
Martin, as usual has been setting the standard on his HG/sailplane thing. Looks way to easy to me but credits due, he’s ploughing a lonely furrow and I am sure eventually a few of us will cross over to the dark side (well personally speaking its more of a sort of brown side really ) Top man Martin.
Noel, Julian and Dave have been doing a bit of motoring about too…not heard too much about that though……
No great issues with the sites this year. The parking permits were sent to us as usual. There was some fence climbing at Slui Curn, which apparently upset the farmer, so we will see a little less of that please, but apart from that no problems. The site with no name has gained a few more fans….its going to be popular this one I tell ya. Issues with Slui Lewaige also seem to be resolving themselves.
Crash wise things have again been very quiet. Last year we banked with a big fat zero and this year looked like being the same until one of the trainees did his ankle in. As this was off the Island and was also under instruction, I don’t think it really counts and so think we have, again, had another accident free year for the club.
Money wise the club is also doing ok. Big outlays for Jockys course and the repack expected. We will however still have a little cash left if anyone has any ideas on how to spend it..
We will be having a dinner/get together in January with a slide show of pics taken through the year. I hope you can all make it, it should be an ideal opportunity to talk some bollocks about what you’re going to do in 2006 and present the rocks…..and maybe keep the girls happy..
So that’s about it. Good bye 2005, your weather was pants. Hello 2006, fingers crossed.
Merry Xmas everybody and a flyable new year.
Dan