The cold front that was forecast for the day moved faster than expected dumping an incredible amount of rain on the area in the wee hours of the morning.
The day dawned with sky filled with broken cumulus, much like all the rest. The drift was a little more easterly than usual.
On launch the sky looked good. The wind was coming up the back side though, that is the side of Pico de Ibituruna that faces away from the city. They call it the south launch although it really faces ESE.

The south launch is somewhat problematic. It is essentially a cliff launch with a short, flat, grassy area to layout the gliders on. The lip of the cliff is sharp enough that when gliders are laid out they are in a null zone. So even when the wind is blowing at a reasonalbe speed you have to pull it up through this null zone into the breeze. This makes for exciting and easily blown launches. Added to the mix is that there is really only enough room between the cliff edge and the staging area for one glider so the time interval between launches is increased.

A short 54.7 km task was called with the last turnpoint being Pico de Ibituruna and the goal at Feira de Paz, the LZ next to the city.

Being post frontal the day was unstable. Fallout and overdevelopment along the course line forced a change in the task before the window was open.
The modified task was an out and back in the opposite direction. Again finishing with a turnpoint on the top of the mountain and goal at the main LZ. The out and back was 54.6 km.

Despite the potential for problems on the south launch all the competitors were launched within about 15 minutes. Well, all but one. One woman pilot got stymied as clouds engulfed the hill before she could launch. After a 30 minute wait she was able to get off though.

Meanwhile, as the pilots moved towards the start cylinder, conditions looked reasonable. A cloud street developed heading nearly straight to the turnpoint. So by the start opening it looked as if they would have a good task.

Back on the mountain however, overdevelopment upwind was threatening to bring rain and a possible gust front. I launched after all of the competitors had cleared the area and advanced towards the first turnpoint.
The lift was good but the fallout upwind looked a bit ominous and after 15 minutes of soaring the south side cloudbase began to lower again. So I ran towards the city and the leeside. There was lift in the lee but it was quite turbulent. And the wind in the Rio Doce river valley began to increase, undoubtably a manifistation of the squall on the other side of the mountain. I landed in a 15-20 km/hr breeze as the sky above the mountain became overcast when the overdeveloped clouds smeared downwind.
It still looked good on course line but it looked like it would be difficult for the pilots to complete the task.

And they didn’t. The early word is that most dropped out near the first turnpoint. It is unlikely to be a high scoring day so the standings shouldn’t change much after the scores are tabulated.

Big party tonight. Awards tomorrow.

Results will be posted on www.2005worlds.com as soon as they are posted here so you can check there and find out the final results quicker than I could type them.

10 tasks.
Gobs and gobs of airtime.
Thousands of 360’s.
A few injuries but no significant accidents.
A pretty cool competition.
Oh yeah, it was the World Championships.

Jeff Huey

I’ve been waiting to write in…hoping I’d have something really exciting to write about but the days keep going by and I seem to keep making the same ol mistakes here in Brazil. I’m trying to race…I keep thinking there is something better out there…I try to run away from the gaggles. This has cost me big time. Last week during a team de-brief we were all joking around about how we screw up during the flights and how nice it would be to have something that would stop us from doing it….Josh threw out the idea of a shock collar…you know the ones, people put up an invisable electric fence around the yard to keep the dogs in so they never leave the yard. We decided we needed this in the thermals here with the gaggles….each time we tried to leave the gaggle we would be shocked into returning and coming to our senses. Then we thought we could shock each other as well if we looked down and saw one of us racing or doing something stupid. How good would this be!!!
So the first day I used this this therory, it worked…I just happened to pack my harness wrong and had something poking me in the back, I instantly thought of the “shock collar idea” and used it during the flight to remind me. Each time I had the urge to leave I stopped myself and was reminded to be patient. This was the day I made my first goal!!! I think we’re on to something here……. Yesterday I could have used a few good zaps as I tried to race away from the gaggle only to have them fly over my head as I scratched up from the deck…… it does’nt pay….I did end up making goal but way late. I got lucky!!! One more day….I promise to be a good dog!!!

Another good day.
The leaders speed was around 30 kph.
Eric, Josh, Len, and Kari have made goal.
Along with lots of other pilots.
And they are still arriving.
Haven´t heard from Cherie but hopefully she is one of those still on course. < > Cherie is fine but landed on the other side of the hill and got retrieved by the meet retrieve truck.

Jeff

The forecast is dismal due to an approaching cold front.

And it was cloudy all morning until the opening of the launch window. But conditions improved rapidly about 1/2 hour after the window opened and now, midway through the task, it looks quite good.

You can see the high clouds to the south demarking the front but it looks good now for the 53.1 km task that was called.
Jeff

For all you ladies out there reading this blog (are there any out there?), yesterday’s task was quite historical. Petra Krausova of the Czech Republic won the Task, 76 km and first Overall!! To my knowledge (please correct me if I’m wrong) this may be the first ever female win of a Task in International Championship competition. An inspiration, the doors have been openened… watch out guys!

Yesterday I had a good flight with several low saves. Nonetheless, given my skill-level (below average in this realm), the speed I fly (not fast enough in this realm), and the performance of my serial class glider (low in this realm) I only made it part way around the course before the sky turned blue and the lift peetered out. The lead gaggle was about 10-15 km ahead of me when I landed, with another 15-20km to Goal. Someone I landed with claimed it was impossible for anyone to make Goal this day, as the lift had shut down, so we made a bet for a cold brew. Didn’t he know about the power of the gaggle? With the best pilots in the world flying together, often the impossible becomes possible. It was late in the day, cumulus had dried up, the sky was blue and the sun was setting… yet when a gaggle of 60 top pilots comes drifting through, no lift goes unfound or unused, no matter how small. Ultimately more than 70 pilots made it to within a couple of km of Goal (including Len at 800 meters)… and the virtual goal that was half way up the mountain was reached by 20 (including Eric in 7th). So as I sipped my hardwon cold beer at the LZ, I mulled over again how a gaggle of good pilots can make the impossible in flying quite possible.

The day looked good.
The task was 76.4 km.
After nearly 5 hours in the air the first pilot to goal was Petra Krausova the Czech Republic.
That’s right Petra beat all the men.

About 20 pilots in goal.
Eric made goal.
Len was just short.
Josh made 58.3 km.
Cherie made 43 km.
Kari did a little less.

The day that had looked and started out so good stabilized considerably after 4 pm as the air dried out and the clouds dissipated.

Jeff

The best day of the meet so far.

The average speed on the 66 km task was over 30 km/hr.

Eric, Kari and Len made goal with times of 2:06, 2:22, and 2:39, respectively.

No word from Cherie as of 5:30.
But she did arrive later on the meet retrieval

98 pilots in goal
Results at:
www.2005worlds.com

Check out the Worlds theme MP3 by DJ Anna on the 2005worlds site.
Jeff

Turns out that there were 60 pilots in goal for task 6.

And 37 that didn´t get past the minimum distance of 8 km.

Eric and Len made it but were relatively slow and as I reported yesterday Josh was about 100m short.

Kari and Cherie were part of the 37.

After task 6 the team is still in 11 th place.

Individually in the mens standings.
Christian Tammegger 1st AUT
Stefan Wyss 2nd CHE
Steve Cox 3rd CHE
Josh Cohn 33rd USA
Eric Reed 37th USA
Len Szafaryn 64th USA

Womens standings:
Louise Crandal 1st DEN
Kari Castle 16th USA
Cherie Silvera 20th. USA

Jeff

The started at 12:30 and I´ve heard from Len, Eric, and Kari. AT 1:30 they have made the and are doing well on the course. They are about 15 Km from the first turnpoint on a 66 Km task. They should be in goal between 3:00 and 4:00. The last two legs, about 23 km total is into a quartering headwind so things will slow down after the quick start.

Unfortunately Josh dirted before the start. The only consolation is that our driver Robson retrieved him immediately so that at least he can rest up for tomorrow.

No word from Cherie at this time.

Jeff

The conditions looked rather poor when the task was set and conditions were forecast to deterioate.

Consequently a short 53.1 km task was called and the window opened early.

As the pilots got on course the conditions improved and the race was on.
Len and Eric made goal, Josh was about 100 meters short.

48 pilots in goal.
It was a speed run with individual start times so we don’t know the days standings yet.
Jeff Huey

So when the day was cancelled on Sunday, Len took off as soon as they allowed us.
Whilst in a steep spiral over the Fiera de Paz landing area he took a collapse. It may have been a wake from a nearby glider but more likely had something to do with the gust front that just happened to hit with 30 km/hr winds.
In any case, his glider spun and he fell. He got his reserve out before impact but was too low and was falling too slowly for it to fully deploy.
He landed on a metal carport roof, bending it to the ground before he landed on his feet and walked away, for the most part unscathed.

Yesterday we watched Spiderman 2. When Toby Maguire falls 15 stories to land on some ductwork with a dull thud we got a feel for how Len felt as he fell from the sky.

He was lucky and now has a new nickname.

We are glad that he is ok.

Jeff Huey

Sunday was cancelled before the window opened due to low cloudbase and lack of lift. Cloudbase was only just above launch for a short part of the day. Some people were able to fly down, but due to strong winds at the LZ the meet organizers closed the launch with most people forced to bus it down the mountain. A big dance party followed until late into the night at the landing field
Monday was a mandatory rest day. We spent the day making repairs, tweaking equipment, and other forms of R&R. For flying it looked like the best day we had had in two weeks, and Jouni from Finland reported lift at over 1600 fpm!

Day 4 58.3 km
Provisional results.

1) Christian Tammeger 2:20:10
38) Eric Reed 2:32:18
46) Josh Cohn 2:35:52
72) Len Szafaryn 57.9 km
73) Kari Castle 57.6 km
115) Cherie Silvera 24.4 km

Overall:
1) Christian Tammeger
2) Torsten Siegel
3) Steve Cox
24) Eric Reed
40) Josh Cohn
57) Len Szafaryn
125) Cherie Silvera
128) Kari Castle

The German team is in 1st, Swiss are 2nd.
The US team is currently 9th.
Which is pretty good considering all of the other teams ahead of the US (and a few behind) have a full complement of 5 men and 2 women on the team. The team scoring uses the three best scores from the team members each day.

Jeff Huey

Today was a 58k task composed of two out and returns – one to the southeast and one the southwest.

Goal was back here in town, almost which is nice for the organization, spectators, public participation, etc and for us too. There was some discussion early on about weather the advantages of having goal in town would outweigh one big disadvantage: it would require doing a final glide over a big, fast, mean river. Landing in it would be disastrous. Today anyway, we had a pretty good compromise. The actual goal was safely on the course line side of the river. They called it a “virtual” goal because there was no goal line, no marshals, no people, no party, just a point on the GPS. What that meant was that the race ended there but they wanted to encourage everyone to not land there but instead cross the river and land in the city. It worked out pretty well, except that the virtual goal they picked was in a bit of a swamp which Josh got to discover when he landed there (not too bad really, his glider stayed dry anyway.)

A first today: for most of the last third of the task almost the whole US Team was flying together! Lots of teams seem to stay together but the US rarely does. Sometimes flying separately works well - eggs in different baskets – but regardless racing along within site of each other for an hour as we neared the end of the task was really fun.

Another first: we had at least occasional strong climbs all day. I should probably qualify that by saying that I’m considering anything over 300 feet per minute as solidly on the strong side. That was a treat after a couple of days of circling in zeros and 10 or 20 feet per minute climbs. The highlight was on the way to goal, approaching the lee side of the mountain and flying straight in lift for two and a half kilometers. Yeah!

There were lots in goal today including Josh and I in reasonable time ~ 2 ½ hours. Len and Kari were short by a few hundred meters. Hard to guess how today’s results will affect the US standing. We’ll know soon.

Eric

The team is doing great. Today we had task 4, 58 km - can you believe it, a competition where you actually fly everyday… lets not jinx it! Today Eric and Josh in goal, and Kari and Len just short (500 meters). I think they all did some great flying and racing, but I know Kari & Len were a little disappointed to miss the (virtual) goal field. Nonetheless, Len got to cool down while crossing rivers and swamps on his 200 meter slog to the road from his landing spot. I expect we should have a decent score for the day- we shall see. As for me… Ok, one day in goal - yippy! (and a big score for that day), and three days not quite what I had hoped for. So tomorrow is my big day to bring my personal success average up. Really the flying here isn´t very difficult, you just have to stay with your gaggle and dont make mistakes, because they quickly put you on the ground. Nonetheless the low base (or high ground) manages to entrap a few unlucky ones everyday. Send lucky flying vibes!
Lastly: A big factor in the succes of the team often goes unmentioned, but thanks to our amazing driver Robson, who is a fixer of everything, his sister who rented us her fabulous house, and teamleader Jeff, who is tireless in his assistance and enthusiasm to make this a succesful championship. Cheers!

After a few shocking days for me, I think its safe to say I´m in the leasure class now. Its all about the experience, learning and the adventure from now on. On day 3 I landed pretty early on, 9km out from the second turnpoint where most other pilots landed. However 9 km out left me in the middle of a huge section without retrieve. So after packing up I just started walking toward the sun and the main road that I knew was there. I had no idea it was that far though…I walked and walked…the road I was following got worse and worse until it almost went away while crossing thru a flat area completly saturated from all the water. I almost lost my sandles as they got sucked off my feet as I bent over to pull them out but they wernt budging my pack slipped over my head and I almost did a summersault in the slog while fighting with my sandles….I had to laugh at this point and knew I was in this for the adventure. A while later after I finally stopped to rest and check phone coverage which I had to my surprize a horse and cart drivin by a few locals pulled up and offered a ride. I accepted no worries. So off I went on a bumpy ride while talking to Jeff and Robson giving them my latest co-ordinates…we came to the river and I thought we were done but they just plowed thru. I was so thankfull not to have come accross this obsticle alone!! Not long after that I was sent walking again as they turned left and pointed for me to go right…Adios I´m off again. 2 km out from reaching the main road I saw my first car as it came up from behind and stopped, they said get in, I think …again I was so gratefull. Meanwhile word from Jeff and Robson was they thought they were on the road to get me but I never saw them as we drove out. I was dropped at the nearest gas /bus station complete with cold beer and cell coverage. I called the boys and told em I had a ride so now they were left trying to get out of where they were. I just made it out before darkness set in, so I was happy to wait with a cold beer and water in hand.
I can´t wait to see whats in store for today…wish us luck!!!

Day three looked good.
Like all the other days.
Cumulus clouds stretching to the horizon like a soaring pilots dream come true.
And the lift on Pico de Ibituruna was great. Cloudbase at about 1500 meters.

The start of the task led the pilots to postition themselves to the East of the mountain about 10 km away. This positioned them to be upwind of the start and the first turnpoint.

As team leader my routine has been to launch everybody and then after all the competitors have flown I get to jump with the free-flyers. Depending upon the length of the task I usually have time for about a half an hour flight before landing to go on retrieve.
Yesterday the meet organizers allowed us (the free flyers) off a little early so I flew for about 1/2 an hour.
Then Len reported that they were rounding the first turnpoint. Uh oh, they were moving fast so I spiraled out of the sky, through the strong lift, and jumped into the car with Robson to head for the next turnpoint which was at a small town called Era Nova that the highway to Rio runs through. .

When we got there sure enough we could see the gaggles in the distance, coming our way.
The clouds looked good still.
But the gaggle approached excruciatingly slowly. The closer they got to the turnpoint the slower they went and the bluer the sky got. Before they arrived there was a blue hole all around the turnpoint.

Finally the gliders started dribbling past the turnpoint but despite the fact that there were at least 100 gliders on search very little lift was found and soon the sky was raining paragliders. They were landing everywhere around the turnpoint.
They lit next to the road, on the hillsides, in small pastures and even on the road itself. Robson went up to a bend in the highway to warn the traffic and slow it down as the gliders fell from the sky.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, about 10 gliders got away in one group and about 7 in another. But none of the rest of the field could get more than a km past Era Nova.
Goal was only about 12 Km away, on the downwind, but only four or five gliders made it in.
Frank Brown of Brasil was first to goal.

Josh, Len, and Eric all landed at Era Nova for a reasonable score for the day. Kari landed about 9 km short of Era Nova and Cherie was back another 4.5 km.

Kari was in deep. Her retrieve included a ride in a horse drawn cart. Good thing because the river that she had to ford would´ve been about chest deep. She walked for several hours in the heat as Robson and I tried to reach her position. Finally she got a ride to the highway as Robson and I explored some rather rural areas of the country side.

The US team is currenly in 10th but poised to come on strong in the days ahead.

Day 4 has dawned with clear skies and scattered cumulus clouds. Looks like another good day.

I´ve taken some more pictures but am hampered by an internet connection that is slower yesterdays gaggle and haven´t been able to upload them. I will try a different connection this evening.

Jeff

From Task 2:

A gaggle under a cloud.

Louise Crandal (on blue Boom 4) on glide.

Kari Castle on her Windtech Tactic in front of the gaggle.

Two Days, two good tasks.
With a forecast of cloudbase at 1800 meters, the highest yet in the 10 days that I´ve been here, the task committe called a 62.4 km task.
78 made goal.
Norman Lausch of Germany was first with a time of 1:54.
For the US team, three pilots made goal, Eric Reed, Len Szafaryn, and Cherie Silvera.
Eric was 18th for the day, only 4 minutes behind Norman.
Len was 43rd, 8 minutes out of first, and Cherie was 70th with a time of 2:05:55.
That´s right less than 13 minutes between first place and 70th place. Talk about gaggle flying.
It was quite impressive to see the gaggles move across the landscape and to the goal.

Kari and Josh did what would normally be considered reasonably well, had there not been 78 pilots in goal.
Kari was about 7 km short of goal and Josh was about 9km.

I´ll try to post a few photos on the paragliding forum website in the favorite flight photo catagory. (This may take a day or two as our internet connection is a bit slow and cumbersome.

Jeff Huey