The wind was forecast to be light NE to N so Keith and I decided to give Slieu Lewaigue a try. Got there just past 11 to see Watty taking off. He had a quick top to bottom, too light, so hung around for a while. It was not really getting any better so we bit the bullet and joined by Giles, all walked up North Barrule from the Hibernian.
Got to the top to be met by a nice breeze on the ridge. Although there was not much sunshine it was obviously quite thermic with seagulls going up. We all took off pretty much together and went up. It was very up and down with the wind obviously not strong enough to let us maintain. Watty marked a nice thermal over the saddle so dropped in beneath and got quite high, drifting over the back, probably 150 metres or so above. The lift went (prob still there just did not want to go too far back) so headed back to the ridge and got nailed into the ground. Think we all came down shortly afterwards.
Had a short walk back to the top and then took off into a more solid breeze and managed to stay up. The day had now clouded over so it was a big surprise to get into a nice thermal with Keith over the saddle again. This time followed it well over the back and into the valley behind. Probably got to cloud base (300m above take off?) with Keith about 10 metres above and headed off toward the lump behind Dhoon. The glide was not sinky but it was really quite surprising to see Laxey wheel so close and probably a ‘do-able’ glide away. Keith headed off toward the fields above Laxey wheel and I nudged west over Agneash village where I got the lightest of broken thermals. This, coupled with a nice northerly drift gave me enough height to get over the Laxey Valley. The thermal got better and I was soon back over 600 metres above sea level. I drifted with the thermal over my parents place by Fairy cottage, really quite high. I guess the lift petered out somewhere between Ballacannel and Baldrine but it was still buoyant. Picked up some lift again and just kept doing some lazy 360s drifting south all the time about 1km in land of the White Bridge straight.
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Barrule - Onchan
More Spring Flying
12.30pm Sunday
Snaefell was working well initially. Giles jumped off first whilst I was left dealing with about 35 issues. By the time I took off Giles had been well high above take off (ace). It then got more and more northerly, although thermic and Jamie, Keith, Giles, and I all got sunk out a lot of times. After enough walking with my wing to last a life time from the previous day/weekend Giles and I decided to head out under a cloud. Lots of useable lift (which I could n’t) so landed.
Bill picked us up from the lander and we headed to Carrigan. No wind there until Giles offered his bbq pork to the wind gods. This did the trick (obviously) and both jumped off into a nice 12mph some minutes later (fab). As always Carrigan worked like a charm, although any escape to the south or east was blocked by the Douglas Bay cu-nim.(b?llocks) We were both plenty high enough to continue to take the 1-2 m/s thermals over the back if we wished to get sucked into oblivion (nice?). Could see the boys on Snaefell going up and down all the time also.
Anyway, both punted around in the thermic conditions for some time. Then a glider appeared from Bennyphot, it glided down the small ridge from Benny to the SWNN and then nipped over to the foothills of Carrigan. Young Swalesy had made it over from Snaefell (cool). He was real unlucky because just at that time it switched off and we all landed. (sh?t). Swalesy and I walked up, I took off and went up in some more thermals (4.40pm) then headed to the Car at the SWNN. Got higher and higher and higher on the way over and started having giddy thoughts about flying to all places. Then got nicely drilled into the ground just before making it (oh bogger). That was it, an interesting and thermic day.
Think Watty landed on foothills of Bennyphot.
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