Guayaquil Cross Country Championship
The prospects for good flying conditions were bright Tuesday morning as we woke
up to sunshine and cu's. When we got to the launch after noon it was coming in
strong with good launch conditions so we were encouraged to get setup right
away.
I was second off soon after John Hesch and found very light conditions that
caused me to really eek it out along the hill sides working a little above zero.
It took a while but finally I found a little something better and worked my way
up to 1000' over launch (which is 1000' above the LZ) and over the ridge line to
the east.
Now I had to wait for the others to get going. The idea was to go over the back
to the north and into the interior of Ecuador. There would be a retrieval crew,
but you wanted to stay with others to keep in touch. I had neglected to hook up
my head set to my radio not having used it in a while, so I wanted to be sure to
fly with others. Also I wanted the assistance of other pilots in finding
thermals.
As I waited around at cloud base at 3,200' the others took off and finally I was
joined by Dustin, Kraig, Alex, and a few others over the first set of towers to
the east of launch. I wasn't sure anyone was going over the back as we were all
dawdling about, but I kept my eye on Dustin and Kraig. When they decided to go I
left at 3,400' with them, but a hundred feet lower (which I hate). I lost track
of everyone else except Alex who was below and behind us.
A few kilometers over the back is a sprawling slum area of dirt roads and one
room shacks. We had designated fields to land in if we didn't encounter any
lift, but we found it right away under the thin cu's. It was pretty exciting
climbing out over this huge densely populated area but it felt completely safe
as we could see the fields nearby.
In what seemed like a few minutes we were past our three designated LZ's and
heading out into the country along the river. The main highway was just on the
left side of the river and the idea was to follow it.
Kraig found some good lift about twenty kilometers out from the launch and then
Dustin found better. We climbed to over 4,000'. I was behind them now by about a
kilometer but as high as I left just in the wispies. They headed northwest away
from the river and toward the clouds.
It was a long glide and as I watched them ahead for any signs of lift I got
lower and lower and began also checking out the possible landing zones. The area
below was part of the delta and quite flat with lots of rice fields. You
actually didn't want to land in the rice fields as they had water in them.
There was a sea breeze that came in as we headed past the twenty kilometer mark
but I didn't notice it. There were light cu's ahead and the lift had been very
consistent so far, so I was not concerned at first.
I didn't see Dustin or Kraig find anything before I got too low to keep
searching and I went to land in what turned out to be a dry rice field. They did
find something just upwind of where I landed about 40 km out from the start. The
breeze was quite strong when I landed.
There was a sea breeze convergence just beyond where I landed. Dustin and Kraig
found light lift back to 2,000' and then were able to get over to it. The
convergence cloud soon became very obvious.
I got on the radio right away to Kraig (Dustin hadn't brought his radio so he
was going to stick with Kraig) and made sure that he could relay my location to
retrieval when he could get a hold of them. The field workers, who were working
in the rice paddy next to me, came over and helped me break down the glider and
carry it over to the wider dirt path/road.
There was a motorcycle driver passenger carriage on the path and we tied the
glider down on top of it and the driver took me to the town a couple of
kilometers away where I could wait on the main road for retrieval.
Pablito came with Alex who landed back at the third designated LZ and we headed
off after Kraig and Dustin. This was the main road to the northwest that went to
Canoa, so we will be traveling on it today (Wednesday) on our travel day. Lots
of speed bumps in the towns as we passed through them.
Dustin land Kraig landed together about 80 to 90 kilometers out from the launch
setting the new Ecuadorian distance record by surpassing Raul's 2004 record from
Guayaquil of 40 km. They were one kilometer behind a locked gate on a large
ranch, but we found the gatekeeper and road in to find them. They will split the
$500 prize money that Raul put up for breaking the record.
As they got further away from Guayaquil the land rose. They landed next to a
mountain range and in rolling hills. They had been flying the sea breeze
convergence and getting high, Dustin to 5,700'. There were some field fires and
they recalled seeing two separate fires with the smoke from each fire converging
and marking the area of lift.
http://OzReport.com/1256735957
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