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The Results table for the Talgarth event is available in pdf format:
Talgarth 2010 Results
Rockpolishers weekend at Talgarth - 29/30 June 2010
Saturday was a washout without even some local flying to relieve the boredom, even some of the teams decided not to arrive until Sunday. However, this allowed a small, but beautifully formed, throng to enjoy the BBQ in the hangar on Saturday evening.
Sunday dawned bright and clear with a brisk North Westerly wind, an interesting looking sky and a wind profile suggesting wave. Mike Tomlinson was our Met man and Task Setter (as well as our Pundit in the K21) and the conditions made task setting for visitors a bit of a challenge. However, Mike came up with a 96k task for the Pundits and Intermediates - BRE, BUI and SAR while for the Novices we had BRE, BUI and HYE giving 80k. The decision was made at briefing not to impose a maximum start height which allowed pilots to exploit the wave - which many of them promptly did with height gains of over 10,000ft. With co-operating weather, an enthusiastic tuggie (thanks Tony) and a well organised team at the launch point (thanks to Julie King and Martin Brock) the whole competition grid of 13 pilots was launched in 1hr 10min.
It seemed we had only just got our breath back from launching when a 5 minute call was heard, so Sue and I went off to start the scoring process in the briefing room. First back was Phil King – Shobdon Pundit, with a speed of 107kph. I was beginning wonder if we had underset the task when the first phone call came in for a landout, so perhaps the task was challenging after all. As the afternoon went on and the loggers came in, there were mixed reports of blistering speeds and of great struggles. Come the end there were 2 successful landouts, 9 completed tasks and 3 aborted tasks.
The full results will appear on the website in due course, but in summary Nympsfield won the weekend with 13 points, in joint 2nd were Talgarth, Long Mynd and Usk with 8 points and Shobdon were 5th with 7 points.
The flight of the day must belong to Pete Bagnall from Nympsfield flying a Discus. Because Nympsfield were short of a Pundit, they asked if Pete could go round twice and nominated the first circuit as Intermediate and the second circuit as Pundit. As it was pre-declared and in the spirit of Rockpolishers we agreed to the request. Sorting out the ensuing logger trace was a challenge for me but it showed that Pete had gone round at 108kph and then again at 111kph!
Once again, our visitors have gone away with happy memories of Talgarth and a great impression of what we have to offer. For a small club like ours, it is a big event to host Rockpolishers and the work falls on the same small band each time. So, once again a huge thanks to everyone that made it all happen – the ladies, led by Jan, Sandi and Anne, who kept us nourished, Julie who started the days with bacon butties then kept us in order at the launch point, Tony Crowden for sterling work in the Tug, our pilots Mike Tomlinson, Stewart Renfrew and Dick Jeffcoate, everyone who helped at the launch point and on the field and finally to Sue who somehow manages to make sense of my ramblings and scribble to present the results in a readable format. Apologies to anyone I've overlooked in my haste to send this out.
Clarkie
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