I'm confused. Belinda, the Jeff's and I got to launch early, starting out from the Alba Rosa at 9:30 AM. The GFS forecast was for thirteen knots of southwest wind at 4,000' at 2 PM. We set up and I started measuring the winds on launch. Launch is around 3,000'. The winds were seventeen mph, gusting to twenty mph.  There were some times when I wasn't measuring that the gusts were higher.

The local rules state that:

The maximum wind speed in which a task shall be flown is 40km/hr (including gust readings). This shall be measured at the weather station on Mount Cucco.

The weather station is 100 to 200 feet behind where I was making my measurements. It apparently was making readings over forty km/h (twenty five mph).

The task was cancelled without a task briefing. After that about half the pilots flew. The launches were for the most part wire launches with wire men and maybe a nose man. Pilots immediately went up after getting out a few hundred feet. Cloud base was a couple of thousand feet or more over launch. I only saw one slightly dodgy launch.

Ashanta (small young girl) had wind dummied earlier. She had been unwilling to fly in strong winds when we were at the Alpen Open last month. She got low and then thermalled up and landed on top long before the task was cancelled.

The pilots who flew got up to cloud base without any problem. There certainly was plenty of wind but it looked very smooth. Pilots were able to fly very fast (over the ground) into the wind, so it couldn't have been too strong. Pilots were thermaling up way out in the valley, so there must have been something other than ridge lift. There were clouds streets coming into and over launch from the southwest. The task committee had called a task that would have kept us out where the pilots were high and thermaling up.

I broke down as did everyone on the US team other than Jeff O'Brien. Driving down the hill I noticed that the winds were light. When we got to the LZ, the winds were very light. There were half a dozen pilots there. The valley was perfectly flyable and the day look great.

So my question is, why didn't the people who fly here (and I assume who were on the safety committee) know that the wind speed at launch was not an indication of how safe the flying was? Are they unaware of the difference in conditions between the hill side and away from the hill side? What was their main concern? Launching? The launches were wire launches but other than one they looked perfect. Smooth. There was only a small gust factor. Were they afraid that some pilots couldn't launch in these conditions?

A great looking day wasted. Perhaps they should have put out a number of wind dummies and received reports from the valley and the LZ. Maybe they should have set it up to easily offer wire launches. Maybe they should have raised the value of the wind speed allowed at the launch weather station.

We had to turn around and lay the gliders down because they were getting beaten up by the wind on launch.

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