World Champs Day One.

After an amazing opening ceremony (more on that in a later post when we get the video up) and a practice task today the competition officially started. 
As the forecast was for very low bases and risk of thunderstorms here in Feltre we were bused over to Bassano for the task. Bassano is just south of here on the other side of the southern ridge of the Feltre valley and given that it is open to the plains it affords more safety in case of rain or thunderstorms. 
The day looked like it was going to be scratchy with high cloud cover and not much sun but true to the weatherman's word the cloud cover burnt off and conditions improved. 
A 78km task was set with the start at 13.15. By 12.30 there were 150 pilots milling around at cloudbase trying to stay high and avoid going in the cloud. 
The task was essentially up and down the ridge, first east then west then back east but with turn-points in the flats, to make it a bit tricky and also give options if the weather was to deteriorate. In the end the weather held on for the task. Louis was the only Kiwi in goal coming in at 113th (provisional) while Matt and Stu landed near the last turn-point. 
Lets just say that we are glad that the comp is 25% FTV, which essentially means we get to discard one task in 4.

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