HGFA Skysailor Magazine

8 SKY SAILOR March | April 2018 tired! We had a weather system passing through the area today and the wind direction could be anything later in the day. We had a task that had us heading north-east to a large 40km radius, before turning west into an 50km radius and returning south to goal at Peak Hill airstrip. Depending on the weather, this could be a final 15km strong headwind stint. There was discussion at the pilot briefing if this was safe, since we would be crossing a firing range, but eventually all agreed this was the best bet for the forecasted conditions in the local area. After launch, many pilots commented how rough the air was in the 5km start cylinder, some managed better than others to get up, but everyone at least managed to get away for the start. The task saw a fair tailwind for the first 50km of course line, before dropping to almost nothing before the first turnpoint. The faster pilots of the day made a better run after the first turnpoint and made short work of the second leg. With two very large radiuses quite a few different routes are possible, depending on where you intercept the optimum point of each turnpoint, this stretched the field out into many smaller gaggles. Atilla Bertok won another day, again closely followed by Tyler Borradaile and Rory Duncan seconds later. The scores for the top three pilots were incredibly close. No one would know the final scores until the prizegiving that evening, so it was a quick pack up, get home and get ready for the presentation. The only pilot to make goal every day of the competition was Rory Duncan and he rightfully took out the Overall win by one single point! His total score of 5880 points beat seven-time champion Jonny Durand on 5879. Josh Woods took a strong third place after another consistent competition. Sasha Serebrennikova took first place in the Women’s just ahead of Yoko Sano from Japan. The winners: Josh Woods (3rd), Sasha (Women), Jonny Durand (2nd) and Rory Duncan (1st) Photo: Sasha Serebrennikova 2018 Forbes Flatlands Top 10 Photo: Sasha Serebrennikova Photo: Ruta Pleike