Spain 2008
I had a bit of time to kill on the ferry, so you've got a bigger write up than you've had for a while. Also, the photos have some captions for a change, click through them in order and if you're using Internet Explorer use F11 to go full screen.
Every year several Brits travel to Spain, and sometimes France, to compete in the F3F Eurotour. The Spanish event we usually attend is at La Muela at Easter but this year the timing didn't work out for the Brits so instead we went to the new event hosted by Club Planeador at Gijon on gorgeous the north coast of Spain.
Mike Evans, Mike Shellim, Mark Abbotts, Tom MacPherson and myself took the ferry to Santander/Bilbao in time to do a little practice at Gijon, fly the competition and then head off down to La Muela for a week in sport flyers paradise.
The hotel La Borona on the outskirts of Gijon did the job nicely. It's about 10 minutes from the slope, about 10 Euros taxi ride from all the good restaurants and bars in Gijon and has secure underground parking. As a bonus the staff obligingly tuned the big flat screen TV in the bar to the Champions League final and joined in my support of Manchester United as they thrashed Chelsea.
The staff were also kind enough to give Mark Abbotts a new nickname. When he'd booked the room over the phone he was asked his name and in his best Stoke accent he replied 'It's Mark'. The Spanish translation of this ended up as 'Smork' on his reservation card and lots of giggles from the Spanish girls as they checked him in having waited for months to see what a Smork looked like.
You'd think the flying site at Gijon would be easy enough to find but several competitors got caught out by entering the co-ordinates into their GPS rather than selecting the appropriate point using the on-screen map. Normally co-ordinates would be fine but the presence of a road tunnel directly under the slope lead several of the competitors to arrive 100 m below where they'd intended in a dark and wet tunnel with their GPS proudly announcing 'You have arrived at your destination'.
Once the slope was eventually reached all that was left was a five minute walk from the cars to the flying site. The site primarily supports east and west winds but as we were later to find out you can fly north there at a push.
The weekend before the organisers had done a dry run of the gear and held a dummy competition with a whole bunch of sub 40s and a fastest time of 34 but unfortunately the weather forecast for the competition days was light and variable. And so it was. There was a mixture of very hot sunshine, warm rain, extreme lightening, thunder and light winds from all corners of the compass.
Ultimately we completed two rounds, which is not enough to declare a result. It was a real shame, not just for the competitors but also for the organisers who had put in so much work prior to and during the event. As it turns out, even though the event didn't produce enough rounds for a result, the difficult conditions did give the organisers enough hard decisions to make for them to prove they were up to the job.
It was a real shame however that no one got to win the fantastic trophies or the amazing first prize of a Freestyler so generously donated by TUD.
Before leaving Gijon mention should be made of the new Caldera Sport that Dieter was playing around with. Yes it's super cute, yes it goes really well, yes it's designed for fun not F3F and no he won't build you one!
So down to La Muela it was for the Brits where we enjoyed a week or so of typical La Muela conditions. There was pretty wild DS one minute, scratching for lift the next, scorching sunshine and a few big showers. On the flying front there were three particular highlights for me starting with flying my Vector DS in its natural environment for the first time. I've DSd several times before - going back to 99 when Alex and I first went up a slag heap near Machen - but never in sustained conditions or for more than once a year. A couple of days at La Muela brought forth some decent DS and one day in paticular I spent hours continuously DSing and probably learned more in a single flying session than I've done since I was 14. Brilliant fun and part of that was the confidence inspired by the excellent tracking of the Vector - thanks Miguel.
Another piece of fun was flying the electric Easy, which is an absolute must for La Muela. Mike Evans and I would launch in zero wind and see who would crack first and turn the motor on. More often than not the thermals meant it wasn't too much of a challenge but once in a while there'd be nothing about and the competitive instinct meant you would often barely be able to see it before you cracked and powered up but on other occasions you'd thermal it back up from a seemingly lost cause. Again, another great learning experience.
Finally on the flying front was having a go on Tom's Caldera, which was very interesting indeed. It might not be as in vogue as a Freestyler but it's very clear why Dieter and the Kowalskis haven't jumped ship.
Wish I could write more but Portsmouth is in sight...
Click on the photos below for larger versions and some captions - click through them in order and if you're using Internet Explorer use F11 to go full screen.
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More reports and photos can be found at:
http://www.clubplaneador.com/F3F_Open/index.htm (official club site)
http://www.teamfast2furious.com/ (Carlos Cantero)
http://www.carlosf3b.com/Asturias%20I%20Open%20F3F-08/ (Carlos' dad)
http://pierre.rondel.free.fr/images2/Gijon2008/ (Pierre Rondel)
http://www.livef3.com/reportages/2008CampadeTorres.html (no idea - sorry!)
