Day six, Friday August 25th
Ho hum, not much going on here. Even as I woke up the wind was blowing a good 20km/h and it’s probably got a bit stronger since then. Certainly the windsocks are horizontal, and there seems to be little chance of it abating in time for any tasks tonight. The assistant competition director was talking about having a task tomorrow morning, but the mechanisms of the competition make this very hard. A task may finish around 10am, then it needs to be scored, then time for complaints, then an official score, then time for protests and any further time to deal with the protests. In practical terms, the comp ends tonight.
So we have been sitting around catching up on work, reports and other stuff, but what was really useful was a meeting of about 25 pilots (along with stewards and jury) to talk about future expectations for paramotor competitions. This is such a new sport (Leon is only the fourth Euro paramotor competition) that we are still finding our feet. Many of the tasks have been taken from classic classes, since there was no other template, and now that the sport is growing, some of the tasks need refining. There is a proper system for effecting change, and hopefully the (almost 2 hour) meeting will focus competitors’ minds towards getting involved in organisational matters.
Otherwise, not much going on, we decided not to fly yesterday, we are not able to fly today, so we have the closing ceremony to look forward to tomorrow. I’ll get my camera out and go for a walk.