Ayala Liran, flying a Standard Libelle in the Club Class, has won a Silver Medal at the 6th FAI Womens World Gliding Championship at Arboga in Sweden. In what was undoubtedly an extremely challenging and hard fought for competition, all our pilots achieved great individual results, including Elizabeth Sparrow who finished in 5th place in the Club Class and Francesca Aitken who finished in 8th place in the Standard Class flying her first International competition. Our congratulations go to Ayala and all the other members of Team GB.

It's typical of my luck in this comp that the day I won, nearly getting round on a fairly difficult day, the gaggle behind me landed out at 98.9k.  Those of you who are au fait with the comp scoring system will know that this is 1.1k short of making it a competition day.  Rugger! as we may have said before. And worse - the comp organisers didn't give me a day cake for it - but happily the gorgeous Bodil took pity on me and a fresh steaming hot blueberry pie was delivered to the tent at 1.30am.  Bodil, the British team love you!

Obviously I spoke too soon as Liz has managed to find a less than happy local farmer.  He's a little happier after calling the competition - and we're hoping that the charming team of Joao and Conny can bring him round.  If that doesn't work we'll send in Ayala and Fran, who perhaps less fluent in Swedish, sure can sing Abba.  Conveniently Liz landed out in a field on their way home so it's not even a big diversion!

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It wasn't as easy a day as we'd hoped for.  The clouds got bigger and bigger then blacker and blacker then the ground got wetter and wetter.

Could be because of the towering Cumulus - on the plus side there isn't any sign of the dreaded spreadout.

Looking at the high resolution radar imagery it looks like we're still just on the edge of the slightly leaky trough... Large black dogs will be happy but I think the pilots may feel otherwise!

Well, today marks the first day where our QNH is above 1010!  Yes, it's the first day not stuck in the middle of one of the UKMO sponsored lows...  Although we are grateful for their sponsorship as it's obviously better for the British pilots than the continental ones, we would like to experience the Swedish weather :) (more)

Good morning all from overcast Sweden.  Last night the French team filled the cafe with delicious nibbles such as pate on baguette, salami, olives, that well known french delicacy 'le cheesy-wotsit' and of course a variety of alcoholic beverages.  Merci beaucoup!!  It was all so good that our intention to have a grand cook up in the camp of all the bits left over went by the wayside and we only had room for the freshly baked banana cake courtesy of our esteemed Team Captain Mel with support from Fran and Alan.  Jane entertained us with a classical guitar recital which dr

We can't relieve it!!! They launched us under a grey rut soararle sky with cloudrase 1000' higher and climbs stronger than the last comp day - Jane was in a 7.7kt climb as they cancelled the day.. So, curses, no chance to score points and change the result today. 

Morning all and this morning it is sunny - although underfoot the ground squelches slightly when you walk across the campsite.  There are cumulus around already and a not too howling southwesterly.  So it looks as if we have a chance to fly today - fingers etc crossed.  Meanwhile, rigging calls

Everybody made it home in time for the Internationally flavoured Babayaga. 

Joao was cutting it a little fine, as he returned about 9pm with the briefcase containing the masks.  This had caused a little bit of stress earlier when we discovered that there wasn't enough cardboard left to make more! 

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