200km in Scotland - North South Cup

The North South Cup is a delightfully informal comp organised by Jim, Hugh and Jocky bringing together some of the best pilots in the UK.  The comp is mobile and will follow the weather to the best location.   This spring that turned out to be be one our local sites: Tinto in the Scottish Borders.    With one of the best forecasts I have ever seen, 50 pilots set off to a distant goal.   Over 30 people flew over 100km south into Englandshire; 10  flew over 200km with 8 of us in goal at Skipton at 210km after about six and a half hours.   Guy carried on to set the new Scottish record at 217km - previously 154km.      The next step is to do a 200km flight in the Highlands which will be an even bigger adventure.   All we need is the right forecast.  :)

A longer write up of how my day unfolded is here.

All pics from Wayne Seeley








Paragliding World Cup - Portugal

My second Paragliding World Cup was great fun; there were two tricky thunderstorm affected tasks at the start of the week, then some windy and stormy rest days to get us keen, and then two fast racing tasks of 101km and 121km in blue conditions which took the winners 2hrs 34mins and 3hrs 7mins to complete. There is a lot to learn about flying at this level; it was interesting to observe some of the differences in flying styles of the top pilots.    The Brazilians got a big cheer at the prizegiving; they were pushing out front of the gaggles in all the tasks and ended up taking 2 of the top 3 places.  I was lucky that task 2, which I flew badly, was stopped due to rain on the course line and was happy to end up 19th overall out of 120 pilots.
Storm-chasing on T2, pic by Phillipe Broers
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