Alphen aan den Rijn
29-04-2007

With the Queens birthday in Holland tomorrow we have a long weekend and lots of pilots spend their time at the gliding field with absolutely great weather!
Flights up to 450 km have been flown and “apres-soaring” is nice too.
In Belgium the weather was even better! Yesterday Begium top pilot Yves Jeanmotte flew in his Ventus 2 cm/m a 920 km flight with a speed of 119 kmp/h. Great Effort!!!
Patrick Stouffs , another top pilot, had a great day flying 657 km in a duo discus T.

We had a very interesting day here, specially when you like soccer. 3 Teams were ready to win and all over Holland people had radio’s and mobiles to keep in touch with what was happening. Men who never met before, forgot to look after their children and were discussing the goals made on the 3 soccerfields.Tension and laughter as still evything was possible till the last minute!
I was in Amsterdam in a beautiful park with my grand children, and faces from men changed with the news!!! As I am from the South of Holland ,PSV is my club. They lost 11 points over the last couple of weeks, so gave it out hand, but still MADE it today with a 5-1 win, just 1 point more then Ajax Amsterdam. My happiness “in the hole of the lion” was not understood by the real Ajax fans, so I just showed it once.But…..had a great day!

Though I still do not understand the rules from cricket , even listening and looking at it when I lived for over 10 years in OZ, I am happy that Australia won a record third successive world title!
I remember in 1987 when the world glidingchampionships were in Benalla , that all our youngsters played it. The Clockies against the Pommies.The young English kids even learned the Dutch ones, how the rules were played. Some of those kids are top pilots now and one , young Leigh Wells, even WORLD CHAMPION in Sweden in 2006 in standard class.

Ritz