How to glide somewhere really hot. Comp Day 3

Another 40 degree day today was forecast but didn't quite make it on the ground.

Todays goals were to not make mistakes, not get low and bogged down, and keep up with people who knew what they were doing.

The task was set to be an AAT between 262.3km and 603.6km with 3 hours 30 mins to do it. We had a good start with a few other gliders and tried to choose our climbs carefully, only using those that were strong. I flew with the class points leader through some of the softer areas of the task, and that was very interesting seeing when he left climbs, and which climbs he ignored. He also flies very smoothly, which is good as it reduces drag.

We managed to make one big stuff up, and that was coming back 5 minutes early. In an AAT task, if you come back before time is up, you are scored as if you took the full amount of time. If you come back too late, then a smaller percentage of your flight is final glide, so the goal is to come home just after the time is up. What I should have done is used the 5 minutes to go into the 'keyhole', the final turnpoint and that would have improved our speed.

The task can be seen here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/ausmulti13/results/15-meter/task/day3.html

And results here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/ausmulti13/results/15-meter/daily/day3.html 

311 points behind Ian McCullum, our Tasman Trophy archnemesis. Actually for an archnemesis, he's a really nice guy.

The grid. Again. Much like other grids.

They have water in Australia. Most of it isn't very deep, and with trees in it.

The mighty Ventus C. Again. One day I'll figure out some original photos to take.

PS. If anyone is interested, my SPOT page is available here, something should show up once I start flying around 1:30pm tomorrow (3:30pm NZ time):
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0A22JxOZH5zbv2PqH8Ys1UfrHWRqxHzOX