Keepit Regatta - Monday 20 Feb - Day 2

There was quite a bit of rain during the night, and we had thunderstorms predicted for early afternoon. However the weather forcast on Lookoutthewindow.com didn't seem too bad, so our intrepid task setter Dave Shorter set a task. Tambar Springs 40km, Narrabri 50 km Manilla 15 km Lake Keepit - making the minimum distance a modest 137 km. There was a lot of whinging at the briefing about Bob and I on the radio, so we determined to try not to talk so much and stay closer together!

I had a distastrous morning, as you do sometimes - nothing seemed to go right, the end result being that I was late gridding so was right at the back. This turned out to be quite fortunate in the end because it gave Bob a good chance to get established before the start, and it wasn't easy - there were a few relights and one or two dummy spits!

Cloud base was pretty low, and once again the clouds did not seem to fulfil their promise. If you were lucky enough to find a good thermal, the cloud often formed above you. It was quite windy too, so progress was slow. There was a lot of difficulty even reaching the start points, but things did start to improve.

I found a thermal over start point C1, and waited in it for Bob to join me. Meanwhile Dave Shorter and Harry Medlicott set off toward Tambar Springs. Dave's follower elected not to attempt the task. Vic and Ian in LL had a stab at it, but didn't get far, and didn't submit a trace. Their follower gave it away. Garry Speight flying with Graham Holland ventured away from start and got to the hills just past Gunnedah before beetling back home. Garry Ransby and Geoff Sim went a bit further - I didn't hear either of them on the radio. Tood Clark and Matthew Atkinson were the standouts for the day - getting into the Tambar Springs circle and heading north for the Narabri one.

I thought Bob might want to give away, but undaunted, he got the start, and followed me over the Carrols. We managed to be at the same height in the same thermal for once and headed off toward Gunnedah. I encountered no lift before getting to Gunnedah aerodrome, unfortunately Bobs Libelle just didn't quite have the glide to get to Gunnedah aerodrome, and he landed at a small airstrip quite close to it. Dave Bull and Luke went to fetch him.

There was a huge big black cloud brewing to the south west, and it seemed to be advancing on our area fairly quickly. Sparks were coming out of it, and the conditions fell apart past Gunnedah. Dave Shorter and Harry Medlicott elected to give up and come home. Todd and Matthew almost didn't make it home but in the end Todd deposited Matthew in a paddock and climbed away from about 500ft and made it back. He did go on the retrieve though.

Matthew landed in a ploughed paddock - the retrieve team were just driving through the gate on the way out with the glider in the trailer when the rain started - and boy did it rain!! From about 4pm right through half the night it poured down. We had to have our delicious three course meal inside the club house.

Jacques scored the traces that were put in - but since nobody did the task, no points were awarded. But if you look at the OLC for Monday, you will see Lake Keepit was the only site in Australia to submit any flights!