High cloud isn't ideal.

That's what many of the 8 pilots who landed out were thinking, as they sat around chewing grass.

It was a tough day, there were well marked thermals but they just weren't as strong as some needed thanks to the thin layer of high cloud.

The webcam at 4:21 today. Not many gliders back yet... Note that darn high cloud up high.

There was drama abound as normally top pilots landed in paddocks. For Patrick Driessen in the fast class, the day proved less than satisfactory with only 370 points. The past four days he has won the day for 1000 points. Although Nigel hasn't won a day, he has won 800-980 points each day. It really shows what a tight and fierce competition it's been between the top pilots. Consistency paid off and he's come off with the most points in total so far. Totals for fast class can be found here. Todays winner was Lindsey Stephens, well done.

The same happened in the Sports class. Maurice Honey won 6 of the 9 days, but had one or two bad days allowing Tim to cling to the lead without winning a single day. Totals for sports class here. Well done to Maurice for winning the day again.

The club class has a clear winner so far, with Bryan O'Brien winning every day. Totals for club class here. 

Don't forget you can browse through those results to see:

• Day scores
• Total scores on a particular day
• Tasks for the day, including a nice little map.

Tomorrow looks like a 70% chance of not flying due to the weather closing in on us, so that might be the end of the competitions. We'll update everyone tomorrow.

Another wonderful day of gliding. Weather was forecast for strong thermal activity starting early, and indeed it did. It wasn't quite as easy as it looked however, and things changed quickly and on reasonably large scales. What was a leg of strong thermals one minute, could change to a big overdevelopment the next, or a sea breeze could come in and make a big hole.

There were 4 landouts today, including Bob Gray landing out somewhere down south, getting back around 9pm this evening. The turn points for the fast class were Maramarua and Tihoi, making the task a decent 331km.

Sports class had 2 of the 5 competitors get around the task from Morrinsville to Tokoroa. The winner of the day was Robin Britton again. Well done Robin, not only did she win, but she showed us all how to do it properly, with a GPS track that puts the rest of us to shame. Most of us wobbled around the course, searching for lift under the clouds as best we could, while Robin went in an almost straight lines around the whole thing! Here is Tim's track (blue) and Robins track (red) which shows what we mean.

Robins track Red, Tim's track blue.

Thanks to Maurice landing out (and Robin for missing a day!) your intrepid author has taken the lead for the sports class. Note to see the total scores so far, view the results page below, then click "total" along the top.

Big pat on the backs to Patrick Driessen (again!) and Bryan O'Brien (again!) for winning fast and club classes respectively.

Results for fast class 

Results for club class

Results for sports class

Looks like another good day tomorrow, until then...

Well another boomer of a day. It started off gloomy yet again, with a cold front and showers passing overhead around 11am. By 1pm things were looking much better, the thermals started kicking off and didn't stop till late afternoon, enabling tasks to be set.

David summarises the weather for us like no other. Remotely from Auckland too. It's almost like he's here with us.

Thermals ended up big and powerful, a few streets, big gaps between, the odd shower, and inevitably the odd landout. 4 in total, out of an now-up-to 27 competitors.

A big congrats to Robin Britton, being the only Sports class competitor to make it around the task again! Edouard and Sandy landed back while Maurice and Tim landed in paddocks around the countryside. Maurice landed early giving the others a chance to catch up with some points, making the competition a little more interesting. Full scores for sports class here.

Tim's handy tip of the day: don't go looking for lift behind a rain cloud.

Also well done to Bryan O'Brien who took out Club class yet again, and Patrick Driessen (again!) and Trevor Terry who tied for first place for the Fast class. Unusual, but can happen due to the handicap system. Full scores for club class here, and fast class here.

Looks like another really good day tomorrow, looking forward to it already.

A stunning morning with Maurice chomping at the bit to get going.

Closeup of the view without Maurice. Sorry Maurice.

Dave decided to bring in half his glider to get his flight off the GPS. Yes that's a headrest.

The morning started with a grim weather report. The tephigrams didn't look promising at all, wind minimal, and generally not very impressive. It didn't take long to work out David Hirst accidentally sent us last Monday's forecast, and today was in-fact going to be a cracker!

And indeed it was a real boomer. Although there were westerlies, they weren't very strong so the day was primarily a thermal day. Sports class were given a 170km speed task, with club and fast classes given a 200-400km AAT task, with 20 and 25km circles respectively.

It was a long day, but everyone made it around without landing out. There were a number of saves from low down.

Keith Irvine was on hand to take some photos of the finishes with his super zoom lens, thanks Keith

Watering the big field in the sky

The welcoming committee were applauding people as they arrived.

Delta Xray with Nigel doing a fly-through

Results are available here for sports class, here for fast, and here for club class. Well done to Maurice Honey, Brian O'Bryan, and Patrick Driessen. (Hmmm that's almost the same as yesterday...)

All in all a great day. The ridge was just working, thermals were OK, combine the two and you shoot up like a rocket. David Hirst submitted a weather forecast from Auckland and it came out pretty bang on.

A promising start to the morning.

The day in numbers:

3 Tasks for 3 classes
5 Landouts
22 Competitors
1 Wheel up landing (Bill couldn't get his gear down, but it's all fixed now) 
Number of restarts: quite a few! 

The Matamata Soaring Centre competition is now on, as well as the Sports Class Nationals, making 22 competitors total, and lots of people flying up and down the ridge.

The tasks today were set to 3 hours AAT tasks, a number of people found it tough going, getting low. 

Well done to Nelson Badger for starting, landing at Te Aroha, getting back to the airfield quick with Les, then restarting the task again. Quite a few others restarted the task also after getting too low, or stuffing it up somehow. Nelson ended up landing around 6:30pm.

Congrats to Bryan O'Brien for winning Club Class, Maurice Honey for winning Sports Class and Tony Van Dyke for the Fast Class. Click the class for the full results of today on Soaring Spot.

The webcam is now up and running again on the front page for those who want to check what things are up to. It stops occasionally and needs to be restarted manually so apologies for when it does stop.

A startled Bill & Bob at morning briefing. They had just received the task for the day.

Ross Taylor in GPV on ground roll

Arriving back, tying down, and still clouds in the sky

Mmmm meat, Captain Dom & dad at the helm.

We didn't fly yesterday's Soaring Centre practice day due to the rain. Instead we sat around taking pictures of rainbows. And here they are!

Good for the farmers at least

The rainbow as promised.

"Look the rainbow goes from there...

...to there!"

In advance of the weather bomb about to hit, Fin set us a task to the south – Matamata – Putaruru (10km)  - airfield – Okoroire (5km)  - home – Now for some that might seem simple – but add in an easterly that was cutting off the thermals and making them hard to “manage” a ridge that wanted to dump you several kms out, a blue hole over the airfield  and a humid airmass that didn’t want you to venture too high – then it led to several interesting challenges. 

Notwithstanding these Maurrie came in first yet again followed with only 2 points in arrears by Paul Schofield (how close can you get!) and a close third being Tim Bromhead – well done to you all.  It was a challenging day with some of us having to take two tows and most taking more than one try at the start gate.  Most memorable for me was loosing 1000ft between the southern side of the Gore residence to the spud patch – yes I know its only across the road but really indicative of the easterly wave hitting and interrupting – and guess who didn’t twig to it!!! But it sure made for a more cautious return from there onwards. 

All in all – a great day and thanks to Finn for calling such a fine task!!

Thanks Robbin for today's writeup.

Results from Yesterday, day 3

Results from Today, day 4

We didn't have any pics from today, but here are more from yesterday

Tim

It was cloudy.

Maurice

Paul

It was hot.

Sandy

Tomorrow is cancelled for some reason...

Damn Maurice has won the friggen day again.

The camera lens makes the background look closer. Yeah Right.

Well done Maurice, it was a tough day. We all started around 12:30 to an over developed sky, with odd bits of sun hitting the ground. We started landing back in about the order we took off. Maurice and Paul S were at the back of the grid, launched last and managed to stay up for quite a long time. Paul came back, and Maurice decided to start out on the course.

Meanwhile the rest of us 'land-backs' adjourned to the clubrooms for a cup of tea or an iceblock. About 2 we decided to give it another go. All this time Maurice had been flying around trying to stay up.

Standing around talking about flying instead of flying.

Who knew PW5 wings were so long?

At that stage unless someone else starts the course and goes over 30km around the course the day would be a no fly day.

Tim managed to get started, and two competitors meant the task officially had enough people. It was a good run to the first turnpoint of Morrinsville, with a big heavy overdeveloped cloud street starting over the town. This had fantastic lift under it, and conveniently the street went to the next turn point of Karapiro. A quick dash to the turn point and then things disintegrated, putting Tim into a very nice look paddock just out of Cambridge.

Maurice nearly made it right around the course, but landed out near the base of the Kaimais. As such the day will be devalued, so points won't be vast.

Edouard also made a start, and travelled enough to earn some points too, probably coming third for the day.

Everyone other than Tim and Maurice landed back at the field.

Tim's retrieve proved interesting. First up Bill Mace and Les Reisterer managed to get lost on the way. The drove to the road closest to the coordinates given, but unfotunately a big gully was in the way, so they had to find a way around. This involved driving through Cambridge, and buying a map along the way. Bill's phone had run out of battery too, so there was no way to relay what road to go to.

Anyway the retrieve crew turned up, and all was well with the world. Until we realised there was no way our car and trailer would make it down and up a rough and rather steep gully road. Luckily the farmer was handy with his tractor, so we stuck the trailer on that, and away we went. From there on things went smoothly, and we were back in time for dins at 7.

The tractor glider pulling event might be at the next fielddays.

Les riding the back of the trailer

Maurice was retrieved by his son Peter, who also took flight in a local microlight to take some pics. 

Maurice attracting the ladies once again...

All in all a fun day, we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the results.

Sandy & Tim lined up first on the grid