Happy New Year all.
Did anyone fly Staarvey as it should have been well paraglidable there.
First day for ages wind looked as if it would drop to 20mph! As usual base reasonable height both morning and evening but down on the hill when I flew at 1pm! As usual, Slieau Curn south. WSW measuring 6-8mph at the gate. I knew that was wrong but at least it shouldn’t be blown out on top.
On top I managed to put a nasty little rip in the sail, so wasted time returning to the car and patching the sail with duct tape. (Anybody know if there is anyone doing sail repairs on the Island)??
Having wasted valuable time, base had descended from top of Freoghane to take off height and measured wind at take off somewhere around 25 mph!! However take off no problem and it felt much lighter. In the air my vario showed the wind speed varying 10 to 18 mph. ie say only 14 mph. That was confirmed by being able to fly really fast into wind and with the lift coming and going but not rough at all.
Cloudbase was only zero to 200 feet max. So it was just a case of staying OUT of the best lift away from the hill, until being in danger of losing out altogether, then back in beneath take off to top up. Towards the end the cloud cleared enough to allow me to 400 ft ATO.
Not the best flying but interesting and I got nearly 1 hour before landing for my first time at Kirk Michael School after getting a snippet of lift over the north side of the Glen Wyllin valley where the seagulls were soaring quite happily. I was lucky to be noticed by Simon who kindly retrieved me.