Day 2 is Rained Out

WGC2014 – Räyskälä, Finland

23 June   (Second scheduled competition day)
By John Good

 Sailplane racing remains on hold here.  The low-pressure system that’s been controlling our weather continues to move at its leisurely pace.  It rained steadily from 8pm to about 9am (considerably worsening the mud situation). The morning forecast said that Finland would actually receive some sun today, but you’d have to be within about 10 miles of the south coast to see it (we are about 60 miles from there).  So at the morning pilot briefing competition was declared to be cancelled, and we were faced with another day of leisure.

But conditions proved better than the grim forecast: by mid-afternoon we actually had some sun on the airfield, and it looked almost flyable.  I think that to launch even one class would have been tough, and any task would almost certainly have led to many outlandings, and scores - if there were any – controlled by luck.  But I expect our contest organizers were squirming just a bit at the 4pm appearance of the sky.  I’m guessing that tomorrow we will rig and grid all gliders, and try hard to do some flying.