I arrived at the top of Sartfell about 2.30pm, after watching Ste and Goldie scratching around but not getting very high. It was quite blustery but generally about 14mph. Simon arrived back on top from the back side of Sartfell just as I got to the top. I rigged up and then waited for a lull in the wind. The gusts coming through were blowing the wing all over the place and trying to fold it up.
I took off and started going up straight away and very slowly penetrated forward, although I never had to use the bar. There was lift everywhere in front of the hill, with the best climb rate at 4.5 metres / second.
When I was about 150m above take off I decided to go with the next thermal I caught, just to see how far I could get. After hearing how far the others had got, I was quite prepared to be landing out on the side of Slieu Freoghane. I kept circling until I lost the thermal then headed off down wind towards the Snaefell bottom lander, finding another couple of thermals on the way just to keep my height topped up.
I arrived over the reservoir around 115m above take off and found another thermal. This took me up to over 300m above take (I couldn’t always see my vario as the strap was loose and it kept sliding down) so I had to take one hand off the controls every now and again to see it (which is why I can’t be very specific about the heights). I drifted back over to the East Mountain Gate, at the top end of the mountain Mile.
After that it was a straight glide along the west face of North Barrule to Hibernia but I didn’t find any lift along there. I turned into wind around 100 ft above ground level and got bounced around a bit but I landed gently. My measurements from take off to landing come to 13.3 km. I will have to get one of those GPS things, so that people will believe me!