Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Canoa Tracks posted

Sorry for the delay (shame on me!) but it's taken me a bit of time to post all the scores and tracks online. Check them out here: http://goflyxc.hgcomps.net

I will work later on getting the Sport Class tracks up.

I didn't know til after the event that LeoCE supported output from the new FS Trac CIVL scoring software.

What is great about this system is you can look into any task, choose the competitors you want to watch and animate their tracks (by hovering over the "With Selected" column header in the daily results pages) to see (up to five) competitors' tracks being drawn over the terrain.

All within a web browser...no additional software needed.

I've already spent too much time replaying my tracks along with the podium finishers to see where I went wrong each day. Take a close look at Dustin's turnpoints (the red track is his)
....he certainly gained some time with those turnpoints! The one day the point was exactly on the cylinder - I'd be too nervous to cut it that close!

I wish more people (scorers) would use LeoCE. Here's my blurb on it...it's free for events with less than 15 pilots and rather inexpensive for tasks with more pilots. Think of all the programming Manolis did to create this and the exposure it could give your event.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Day 2 update

Looks like Dustin won by 45 seconds....that´s quite considerable

Here are some wingovers before the start opened

Canoa Saturday (Day 2)

I thought I´d go for it today...ooops. The winds were considerably lighter so I knew it´d be slow but I couldn´t help myself! I had a reasonable start and ran well with Daniel, Jeff and Mike down to the first turnpoint but I didn´t let up when we got back to the start area (half way thru the second leg) where the lift is more consistent. It cost me as we pressed on to the second turnpoint which is almost all the way to the other side of the biggest gap in the ridge. I was 5m lower than Mike and had to go and land.

Jeff OBrien was first into goal and he really made up ground on the third leg on Daniel who was second in followed by Mike Glennon. Dustin took the second start (not sure why) and figures he still caught OB by 24 seconds.

I´m just starting the scoring now...

Canoa Day 1

Man, the first day was fun. I had a terrible start (30 seconds slow) which I couldnt recover from but I did manage to pass thre pilots on the way to the first turnpoint (12km) and I never looked back at them. I was chasing Mike Glennon (2nd from last year) but he slowly opened up his lead thru the course.

I took great turnpoints - cutting them nice and tight but Mike did the same. I´m happy (semi-surprised) with my fifth place finish but I´m looking forward to improving. I´ll work on my start for one thing and then I think I have more faith that I can fly faster and lower on the ridge - the sea breeze is just THAT smooth but it´s taken me three days to gain my confidence. I flew with about 10lbs of ballast (beach sand) in my harness yesterday which helped and I may try a bit more. You only get one step on launch before you ride the elevator so ballast doesn´t really hurt your launch (or landing).

With such a short flight (42 minutes on course + only 20 minutes before the start) I was geared up for some sight-seeing in thie unique and beautiful place that I chased after OB to the cliffs to the North. They aren´t sending the competitors that was as there are NO landing field at the bottom of the bluffs but there is penty of lift along them and they are soooo bautiful, I just had to go.

Dustin was already over there and Jeff joined him but they ventured off way further than I wanted to. I stayed on the reliable cliffs that had the sea breeze blowing straight in while they went a bit downwind into no man´s land.

Check out some pics on Jeff´s blog at http://hang6.blogspot.com Here is one from his blog:


I had loaned my camera to Jamie today so I had no camera.