The Worlds

Jeff O'Brien wins the first task of the Worlds (Laragne-Montéglin, France)

• Jeff O'Brien's blog
• Jeff Shapiro's blog
• Dustin Martin's blog
• Jamie Shelden's blog
• Steve Blenkisop's blog
• Jonny Durand's blog
• Curt Warren's blog
• Katharina Lochner's blog
• The Italian's blog
• The Irish blog
• The official blog
• The weather sites

The task was a 168 km circle around the valleys here.  We were sent to the Chabre launch, the ridge/mountain next to Laragne.  I was set to launch first on the east most launch, the launch I like here.  I had swapped spots with Jeff O'Brien on the second launch, was we were numbered 2 and 3 to launch overall.

There were light thermal on the south/sunny side which allowed for a slight breeze coming up the launch.  No one was in a hurry to launch as we had an hour and a half to the first start time, but as soon as it looked launchable I took off and got a nice smooth thermal right out in front.  With the light winds the thermal would prove to be smooth all day.

It was cold up at 7,000' and above and I was staying low just to not spend the whole time in the coldest air.  After a while I saw pilots heading further west where I had gone earlier to escape the lift and I followed them.  They and soon we just kept going until we were twenty five kilometers west of launch, and still outside the eighteen kilometer start circle around Bonnet Rouge to the north west.

The winds were light as forecasted and the cloud base was about 8,500' at 1:30 PM near the launch and where we were (about ten out of the 125 pilots) to the west.  We had gone that far to get under the forming cu's and were just keeping out of them.

At 2:15 PM, the first start time, I headed off, but then came back after four kilometers as I didn't see anyone around and didn't want to be off by myself.  I went back to the ridge but didn't get up high enough in time to take the second start time.  I went east back down the ridge, spotted Scott Barrett under a nice cu and we climbed up to cloud base and got a good start alone together at the last start time, 2:45 PM.  I had been in the air for two hours and enjoying the smooth thermal, and getting use to the temperature.

I found a nice strong thermal about half way to the first turnpoint (the center of the start entry circle) and Scott came over and joined me.  That got us back to over 7,000' from 4,500' and we dove into the mountain side that was the turnpoint.  The air was rough there, like it was a rotor but the wind was from the west, straight down the ridge line, so it was hard to tell what the story was there.

After trying to turn the glider upside down a few times, but not too worried about it I went east down the ridge line (which was basically on the course line) and finally I found a really nice thermal.  Scott was in it already and I just twirled really tight in it and caught up to him.  There were a few stragglers around but we were on our own.

Next there was a jump across a small valley to the hills to the southwest of the Aspres launch.  Our next turnpoint was to the east of Gap.  There was good lift on these hills and I got up (not seeing Scott) to 8,700' before heading out in the large valley and flats around Gap, paying particular attention to staying away from the No Fly zone near the drop zone to the south of our course line.

I headed for the foot hills to the southwest of Gap and found weaker lift.  It took a while to find the good stuff off the flats behind the ridges of the foothills, and I took 500 fpm back to 8,000' just before the second turnpoint and just before the lake.  Scott was off to my right.

I headed for hill that Scott and I got up together the last time we were here at the pre-Worlds.  Scott was a bit more clever noting that there was a bigger hill "in front" of it, to its west, and more into the wind.  I was heading for the lee side of this hill.  Scott headed further right and got up on the bigger hill.  I had spotted Scott heading for that hill but though I was maybe a hundred feet too low to jump over to it.  I did notice two paraglider pilots floating around in front of it, and that should have been enough encouragement to go to it.

I didn't get up behind the hill while in the lee and landed below the dam, not going across the lake as I felt I was too low (which I was).  Many other pilots previously did what Scott did and got up on the front face at Mont Colombis, including Jeff O'Brien.

Jeff and other pilots didn't go over to the Dormillouse ridge but stayed on the hills on the west side of the valley staying high before going over to the valley to get the turnpoint at Saint-Pons, a sailplane port.  Zippy got low in the valley where I landed but got back up in the hillsides that I also attempted to work on the east side of the Durance river.  He got up and went straight down the valley to the Saint-Pons turnpoint.

Jeff O'Brien went straight to the to the mountain that gave us so much trouble last year after getting nice and nice at the turnpoint.  It was right on the course line and landing areas around it are scarce, as we earlier (last year) found out.

He kept going straight while other below him deviated to the right of the course line to the towers northwest of Digne.  He was in a line of lift up higher and just kept going and got ahead.

It was windy at the towers and he jumped the ridge lines that were ninety degrees to the course line coming back toward goal to the northwest.  He's get on the windward side of them and ridge soar up and then jump to the next one.  Alex Ploner was just below him.

Jeff kept jumping ridges until he made it back into goal first.

Many pilots landed just a few meters short of the goal line.  There was substantial wind down below.

Julia landed in a tree (there was a lot of difficult area coming back into the wind).  Warren landed in the treed area also, most likely in a tree, on this last leg.  The west wind builds during the day and it was 10 mph when we first started out and got stronger as the pilots started home from the southeast.

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