Hole of Horcum Winter League

After the non-event in January I was looking forward to getting a competition in at last and I was at Peter’s house bright and early on Saturday morning. Well, maybe “bright” is pushing it a little but it certainly was early! A minor navigational error saw us take a detour via Livingstone and Ratho (don’t ask but you would think we would know the way by now especially with the satnav on!) we arrived at the Saltergate car-park pretty much on time.  

We headed over to the northwest slope trudging through patches of slushy snow on the way. Walking on the slushy snow proved quite tiring and also demonstrated the inaccurate description of many people’s walking boots as being waterproof!! Mine certainly were not and I had soaking wet feet all day and I don’t mean damp I mean WET! Yuk!! Cold too! Boots with a fabric section above ones toes let the melted snow in!! I was well wrapped up and with the rest of me quite warm my extremities were tolerable. Other people were less fortunate! Brrr… A few of us traveled home with no socks on! 

Moan over!

We got underway in very light conditions and it really was a day for accurate flying. A few of us (excuses) were unlucky and had to fly in some very light lift; I flew one round with too way much ballast which didn't help.

Peter launches Mark's Toxic

Peter got to grips with the light conditions right away as did Ronnie Lamp and when we stopped for lunch about 1 o’clock it was very close between them! After a longish break while the conditions dropped away and then picked up again we got going and Peter managed to hold onto his lead to the end. A convincing win for Peter and his FS3.

Mark and his Toxic

There was much of the usual Northern banter which kept our spirits up. A fair amount of hilarity followed the discovery that Jon’s wind-speed meter was set on “wind chill” and not wind-speed. It did explain why when the wind seemed to pick up the meter said it was dropping!! CD’s need a thick skin!

Disappointingly, I finished well down the field. Excuses? Round one was my first flight in 2 months and I flew the first few rounds like a beginner. I was second last in the flying order which meant I flew in dreadful air at the end of the morning session when conditions were dropping and I had the same issue in the last round. However, I was rubbish!!

I still had a grand day out though finished off with fish and chips from the Magpie in Whitby.