Moirs 24th
Twitter sms announcing a hive of paragliding activity for labour weekend with guys heading out to Paeroas, few for towing in Te Aroha, ever present Kario and Moirs also working for remaining in auckland, being a committed family man I could afford only one day outing so selected Moirs.
Another family man Wayne was game for it and so we picked Saturday and headed out to launch at 10am. With labour weekend traffic to encounter made to the hill by 12 noon. We were Glad to see local man Tony Cowley and another gentleman Andy(first time flyer at Moirs) at launch.
With wind in right direction, classic cumulus build up, expectations were high at launch for a good XC only to find after nearly 1 hour and 38 minutes of flight that this was not the day for XC . Managed to reach upto around 1900 ft, twice during flight but the wind was strong and thermals broken making it hard to core and somehow could not connect to the clouds hanging at seemingly reachable distance, quite frustrating.
Overall was good pratice day on thermal flying and happy to get off the ground. Wayne did his first top landing at Moirs, I did not even think of if (considering my windsock experience earlier).
Managed to take some photo's of the day. A good flying day at the Hill so no complaints.
Cheers,
Anand
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| Landing Paddock, spot Tony.jpg | 196.53 KB |
| Nice Cumulus.jpg | 176.08 KB |
| DSCF0286.jpg | 160.86 KB |
| DSCF0282.jpg | 149.8 KB |
Comments
Had the seabreeze already
Had the seabreeze already rolled in? That would explain the thermals being hacked apart and hard to find a climb.
Yep
The wind was becoming more Westerly and steady, not particularly thermic. And the nice clouds tended to be behind launch and not out front. All good indicators of a dominant Westerly Sea-breeze.
Some days you have to be up there a lot earlier than others to "escape". Maybe if there had been a bit more Easterly early on it may have kept the Sea-breeze back long enough.
All part of "the challenge of Moirs".