Much more sun, but another day of short tasks, late starts and plenty of outlandings. Conditions were blue and very weak until mid-afternoon.  At last the 15-Meter class (first in the launch sequence today) got their chance to fly, and they mostly managed to stay aloft – though for the first 40 minutes rarely much above tow release height.  Their shortened task was 241 km, which proved to be long for the conditions: just five of 28 pilots finished, three of whom lost points for finishing lower than the minimum altitude.  Tim Taylor managed 200km, 10th best for the day.

In Club class, of 36 pilots, 27 finished the 128 km task – but only ten of these managed to cross the finish cylinder above the minimum altitude.  Daniel Sazhin was among them, finishing in 15th place.  Curiously, five of the finishers incurred penalties big enough to yield scores lower than some of the outlanded pilots – they’d have improved their scores by landing just short of the finish cylinder.  (I’d thought that – as US rules do – WGC rules had a provision that avoided this strange incentive.)

Second to launch and with a task of just 132 km, Standard class had the best time of it: just three non-finishers, only one of which earned a large finish penalty.  Tom and Sarah had decent speeds and scores about 30 points less than the winner – who earned just 299 points for a 2-hour flight.

Yesterday’s scores were not complete when I wrote my report, but I’m pleased now to note Daniel Sazhin’s third-place finish in Club class, which put him on the podium at this morning’s pilot briefing. (Sadly, only first place earns a bottle of wine.)

The WGC2021 task area is something impressive: 240 turnpoints cover an area about 40% the size of France.  In theory, pilots here could be sent north almost to Paris, or northwest to Mont Saint Michel (just over 400 km from Montluçon-Guéret airport). Only a few turnpoints are found in the rising ground south of here, presumably because landability declines there.  But we’re now told that this vast collection has been deemed inadequate, and we will soon receive an updated collection.  The idea is apparently to add some points near home, the better to cope with weak soaring conditions.  Whether this can be accomplished smoothly remains to be seen.