Canadian Nationals Golden July 30

 First off, the update on Jeff is excellent.  It turns out that instead of a back injury, his only injury was a cracked sternum, due to his radio harness wacking him in the chest when he pounded in.  Otherwise he is OK and resting comfortably in a Calgary hotel.

Today turned into a pretty lopsided day, since of the field, only 10 chose to fly, while the remainder DNF'd.

Essentially it was very windy down low from the WSW.  Reports of winds in the 25kph range with gusts to 35kph down south, and in the LZ at one point.  And in the air over launch it was clearly windy.  But apparently up high it was better.  The problem was getting to up there safely...I wasn't comfortable with the winds on launch (especially on my EN-C glider, when there were comp gliders reporting being parked at times) so ultimately decided not to launch (which probably cost me a top-10 finish, but I'm OK with that!).

Of those that did launch, it seemed there were 2 results...either you got high, stayed high, and made goal (which was once again Chris' house after tagging Willobank and then Moberly), or you got low and landed in some weird place going backwards.  Mike Christiansen got low at Moberly and ended up landing in a punjy-stick cutblock and buggered his ankle a bit.  Max also landed in a cutblock as he couldn't reach the regular LZ's out front, but landed unscathed.  Others reported Level 2 conditions on some valley crossings.  It didn't sound very nice, so I was quite glad I was safely on the ground.

In the end, since most people DNF'd, the winner only got 250 points for making goal.  I'm pretty sure there will be lots of discussion at tomorrow's pilot meeting!

It's evening now and people are flying...still windy but mellower than earlier in the day.