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BMFA League4

R4 was held in Eastbourne at the Long Man Site near Willimington.Due to the poor weather forecast and the long travel distances, no NYMRSC members ventured south!

60inch Report by Steve Clarke

Despite not having cannon-balling lift and loads of entrants we had pretty excellent comp.Since the face of the Long Man was not working we had to set up on the on the W face of the bowl with the wind a bit cocked off to the North. Conditions varied between iffy (we had to bring in the "no diving" rule, just in case) to quite passable as the thermals came through. With 10 competitors we ran a matrix of 2 races of 3 planes and 2 races of 2. Not ideal but the only way to work it. We got off to an inauspicious start as Garry Harrison's Wannabe (Rampage?) and Mike Evans' Ricoshe had a nasty mid-air in the first race. There arose fears of a day of carnage although in fact this was largely avoided. Around lunchtime the sea breeze suddenly just switched on and we had 12 - 15 mph but cocked off to the south. A move into the bowl was necessitated at the end of the round and although that part of the slope isn't as nice, calling for different turning techniques, the wind was blowing fairly well up it.

As Tim says we got an unprecedented 8 rounds in followed by the knockout tournament. This was due in no small part to everyone mucking in and staying sharp. A special mention to Jim from the Eastbourne club who didn't fly but directed ALL the races keeping the pace up nicely and taking a huge burden off of me. Many thanks to you Jim. Fortuitously the major carnage didn't really come to pass although there were a few casualties and plenty of clips and low energy bumps throughout. There was in fact a lot of excellently close fought racing requiring a different skill set from our last outing in major lift at the Bwlch.

The heats section was won by myself with John Phillips taking 2nd, Garry 3rd with Mike E, Mark Abbotts, Tim Prevett and Allen Elliot in 4th=. The lighter conditions don't really suit Abbo and although he won 5, the 3 races he didn't win, he DNFed.

Mark did, however, take the knockout but only after a hard fought duel with Mike E in a fly-off to secure the last slot in the final, which he then won, myself taking 2nd and Tim 3rd.

Competition placings and league points:

1 Steve Clarke 99
2 Mark Abbotts 97
3 Tim Prevett 95
4= Mike Evans 94
4= John Phillips 94
6 Garry Harrison 93
7 Allen Elliot 89
8 Will Deighton 85
9 Julian Perrott 82
10 Mike Crofts 41

Commiserations to Julian who had the chance misfortune to draw far too many races against Tim and the Slapper and to Mike C who had a rough day including a mid-air in practice time which prevented him for joining in the knockout tournament. Final frustration for him was breaking his new Blizzard during sport flying after the comp, in an innocuous looking meeting with the ground. The wing retaining mechanism held but the lump of fuz it was attached to broke free. We were discussing the extent to which one might have to modify a Blizzard to make it EPP60 legal but this could be an indication that these ARTF models may not be a modular, robust, cheap platform for pylon racing.

Finally, sincere thanks to the East Sussex Soaring Association for providing the hill and to the great bunch of local lads who turned out for the comp.

F3F Report by Mike Shellim

Tucked away near the SE corner of England, the Long Man is certainly one of the prettiest sites on the calendar. It also boasts one of the longest walks to the top, as well as a reputation for being somewhat pernickety as to wind direction. On top of this, the forecast for Sunday was for light and variable winds.

Well the he breeze was light, and it did change direction. Nevertheless, seven rounds were eventually flown, the first five from the Long Man slope, and the last two from the SW bowl.

Simon Thornton ended up at the top of the leader board, flying his orange spotty Ceres. Runner-up was John Phillips flying a Predator, while Gary Harrison came in third. Simon also achieved FTD with 46.56.

Many thanks to CD Julian Perrot, John Phillips, Gary Harrison, Jim Taylor and the rest of the ESSA crew for making an unpromising day so worthwhile
1  S Thornton    5414.16 
2  J Phillips    5351.18 
3  G Harrison    5342.22 
4  J West        5245.21 
5  T Macpherson  5242.85 
6  G Reed        5019.52 
7  M Evans       4957.17 
8  M Shellim     4874.10 
9  J Perrott     4833.69 
10 T Noble       4698.12 
11 T Robertson   4490.48 
12 P Taylor      4468.17 
13 J Taylor      4399.76 
14 M Abbotts     3934.40 
15 R Jerome      2163.64