I spent most of Sunday night bailing water that was pouring in through a failed seam the bottom of my 20 year old tent. Water poured in the door when I accidentally unzipped the bottom of the door to check the depth of the water outside. I tried to sleep sitting up on my pad with my electronics sitting in my lap between bailing sessions. Needless to say, I was quite tired when morning and the clearing line finally arrived.
Patrick trailer surfing
I scurried about trying to dry everything so we could move on to our next stop. I also managed to rig the glider before the morning task meeting. The task committee came up with two tasks, both requiring new waypoints which were not written down anywhere. While everyone was trying to get the coordinates to the waypoints, Davis was explaining how we needed to stay on course line to avoid controlled airspace. On top of that, people were mumbling "we're not seriously thinking of flying are we?". In other words general chaos.
Getting ready
The real question was whether the predicted high winds would materialize during the afternoon. We spent the day doing the one thing I dislike about competition flying; going through the motion of getting ready to fly when your not sure you'll actually fly. We had the customary politicking, lobbying, hand wringing, and bravado. The start time was pushed back 30 minutes at one point. I didn't understand the reason for that since the winds would only get stronger. I thought the day should be canceled, but was ready to fly. I was in the launch line when the day was finally put into the trash can.
I "ground flew" my glider back to the tie-down area, unpacked everything, and set the tent back up when I found out we would spend another night at Quest. Later in the evening we went for Thai food at Otto's restaurant. I went to bed early in a nice dry tent and quickly fell to sleep.
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