Alphen aan den Rijn     Sunday August 22 2010      ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Indeed the CIM continued  and the first top days for Flavio in Club class changed into “just” coming home on day 3 , which was a blue thermal day and not coming home on day 4, resulting in a drop from number 1 overall to 4 on soaring day 4. Austrian pilot Rudolf Schneider in the PIK 20 E took over, just leading before Andrea Tomasi, who was during the JWGC in Rieti  in 2007 and the WGC in 2008,  the president of the FIVV.[the Federation] Maybe he still is!  I know anyway he is also a passionate glider pilot.
 In standard class Angelo Gritti tops the overall scores on day 4.
 Luca Di Marchi was on each day till now either 1 or 2 so he tops the list also after this AAT day in 15 m .
 Giorgio Galetto is in super condition/form and flew the AAT [3 hours] in 3.02 over 360.2 km and has a very comfortable lead of over 250 points.
Alberto Sironi won every day till now so he is an easy going number 1 in the 20 m class, also with  230 points on number 2.
In open class Alexander seems to like an AAT as he flew in 2.09 a distance of 358.8 km winning day 4 and leading with 5 points the overall scores till now! Tension enough in this class!!!
 All in all another great day!

Soaring day  5, was a tough one! In club class only 2 Italian pilots flew the task of 235 km. Rudolf only flew 192 km loosing his first overall-spot to Andrea Tomasi. In standard class 18 gliders found their way home in an AAT of 2.30. The Austrians did well but Italian pilot Angelo Gritti, who flies nearly every day in the year when possible in Rieti is 1 overall now.
15 m. class had an AAT of 3 hours and nearly all pilots finished  and Luca won and is now 400 points ahead on number 2 overall. Another glorious day for Giorgio and another WIN, [he should have flown so well in Szeged, ], he is also 400 points ahead on number  In 20 m. class our Russian friends won the day , but Alberto did not loose too much to keep spot 1 for himself and his co-pilot. In open class also an AAT but….Alexander did not fly!!! So the new leader- position is for Austrian pilot Josef Kammerhofen.
A lot happening there in Rieti!
On day 6 last Friday the day was cancelled!

Yesterday was the last flying day in Rieti. Alexander , I heard, has gone home as during a long landing on the day he won on Thursday , his brakes were n’t working and he had some  damage to his wingtips hitting the airport fence and…..as you know by now he loves his soaring in Namibia as well , so he brought his glider straight home for reparation to be ready for shipping his ASW 22 within 4 weeks. A pity for him.
The rest of the pilots had to fly an AAT over 2 hours to define who would be the winner in each of the 6 classes and wow it was a great day with fantastic speed. A bit devalued in points , but who cares.
Club class; best pilot yesterday was not Andrea Tomasi but Andrea Terenziani in ASW 24. He flew an AAT of 242 km with a speed of 121 km/h gaining 600 points while Andrea Tomasi “only “flew 213 km with a speed of 90 km/h gaining 349 points and this way the ASW 24 pilot won the CIM , with 27 points on Austrian pilot Rudolf Schneider and Andrea Tomasi was 3d.
Standard class; Super speed of 149.9 let’s say 150 km. over a distance of  302 km. by Austrian pilot Jan Jagiello with Heinz just a little bit less. Winner of the CIM 2010 Angelo Gritti.
15 m. class; Speed of 145 km/h over 297 km. by Giancarlo Grinza.  Not bad is it??? Winner in this class , as expected Luca De Marchi.
18 m.class; Giorgio did NOT win the last day. Swiss pilot Werner Danz flew his AAT with a speed of 154 km./h over 334 km in 2 hours and 10 minutes!!! But Giorgio Galetto  won with a huge margin the CIM , nearly 400 points ahread of runner up Werner. Nothing wrong with AJ or Alvaro, he had to attend a meeting.
20 m class; another day-win for the Russian pilots, they finally got the hang of Rieti-mountain-flying.144 km/h over 308 km in the duo discus ,…..but  winner of the CIM this year is Alberto Sironi in the ARCUS t. Unfortunately he entered the forbidden area of Terni and got the virtual outlanding there after 250 km. but still had just enough points over [57] to win the cup.
open class; a pity Alexander had to leave but Josef Kammerhofer [Austria] won the last day with such nice speed 158.7 km./h over 318 km in exactly 2 hours that he is the deserved winner of this CIM edition 2010.
Amazing by the way, that so many pilots [9 in total!] entered forbidden areas on the last day, they should know better.
With the prize giving today and the party yesterday evening this must have been an unforgettable CIM again. Even not being there , made me enthusiastic and  curious about what was going on ”in the mecca for gliding”  and knowing so many of the competitors made it really interesting for me and I hope for you as well. Next year there will be another CIM.
For all news about soaring through the year in Rieti look at ; www.fivv.org  or www.aeccvv.eu

The SAIL AMSTERDAM, the biggest Maritime event in the world  started last Thursday with the ”sail-in-parade”   of 50 tall HISTORIC ships and hundreds of other interesting ships. Future King Willem Alexander was on the first ship, the clipper Stad Amsterdam and ships from all over the world are sailing behind him. This event is every year in Amsterdam and attracks millions of people. Really a great event also when you are not so much interested in sailing ships, these are too gorgeous for words.Some are “real” and still in use , as is the trainings ship for the marine from Oman, others are replica’s as the Götheborg a replica from the Swedish East- Indie ship. Also great looking and impressive ships from Russia and Indonesia.
Lot’s of Dutch pleasure-ships have  accompanied the fleet, it was an organized “mess”! Great to see and loved by all!!! The event will be till Monday when all ships leave again, except for the clipper Stad Amsterdam, which stays after 2 years away, at home again.

Luckily yesterday was a nice summer day , but August has been not such a great month. All over Europe the weather has been either too wet, too hot or too dry. Flights have been clearly under 1000 km on the OLC except for that SUPER Fuentemilanos day on August 7 with enough 1000 km flights to be happy for this August month . And on Friday Pepe still had a nice 776 km flight with 105 km.h from Fuente.
 So summer is not over yet but for soaring the days here are getting a bit shorter already and the more or less bad month of August spoils a bit the average of the good summer 2010. The OLC had in April 1517 entrees as best/highest result on ONE day for the month, in May 2301, in June 2598 on June 26, in July 2542 on July 18 and in August till now 1661 on August 7.

The German women have started their Nationals  in Zwickau on August 16 and will continue till August 28 2010. 3 Categories here; 15 m [11 participants] club [20] and standard class [12].
The first 4 days were cancelled but last Friday some pilots even finished and there was an overall score for the 43 pilots. Swaantje Geyer who frequently flew in Australia  in the past, won the first soaring day in her LS 1f in club class, while well known pilots as Katrin Senne and Anja Kohlrausch in 15 m. class “only “were 7 and 5.
Yesterday a task was set as well for the ladies. And…Katrin did better, she won the day in her class, being 3d now overall with Anja on 4. Today the weather is improving even more so just under and just over 300 km tasks have been set.

While the ladies in Germany still have a few days to go, the German juniors  finished their Nationals last Friday in Musbach, with 5 soaring days out of 10. So there was a new National champion in club class Sebastian Nägel with well know Alexander Späth as good runner up and in standard class another well known German pilot Patrick Puskeiler. A total of 75 young pilots from several countries  from Europe must have given a GREAT atmosphere during this pre-JWGC called; Black Forest Glide! A fantastic practise for the JWGC in 2011 in Musbach. When you are interested look at the site at www.dsmj10.de  where my friend Katja [webmaster] from Finland designed the site for the next JWGC and took care of  the news of this competition and she did a great job.

On the latest IGC pilot ranking list  last updated on August 19 2010, Michael Sommer is the new number 1. He passed Sebastian Kawa who is a good number  2 now .

 CU next. Ritz