For the few, a Haiku:

Only four came

They flew morning, then afternoon

The young pilot won.

That about sums it up, but I will add some detail.

The small entry was disappointing, of course, but there were good excuses. None better than that of our old friend Jan Rolinek, from Czech Republic, who suffered spinal injury in a ski-ing accident preventing him from competing. Nevertheless, complete with some impressive plastic scaffolding, he came over anyway and joined the judging line. Thank you so much, Jan, you are a hero!

Our Chief Judge, Charles Baker, proved that men CAN multi-task by acting as scorer as well. Many thanks too to Martin Sandford, who once again came over to the quiet side to judge for us. You are always very welcome, Martin.

We were lucky with the weather. A run of easterlies had given a lot of low cloud and some very strong winds in the last few days but on the Saturday we had a brisk north-easterly and good blue patches between showers. Our tug pilots, Dan Chilcott, Trevor Mills and Bill Craig, did a great job coping with cross-wind (and tractor incursions!).

The competition flying went off very smoothly and without hitch, at least from the CD's point of view (Steve “oops-wrong-way quarter-clover” Hardy probably sees it differently!).  The wind at height was quite strong and both Steve, after his direction error, and Szymon flirted with the downwind box edge. Sally stayed well up-wind (with canny local knowledge) but Daniel managed to position his first sequence nicely, and led the scores after the Known.

We stopped for lunch and a well-timed hailstorm before a lovely clear blue patch drifted through for the four unknown sequence flights. Once again Daniel Weston performed very nicely and kept good position to get the winning score for both the medals and the trophy. Enjoy it for the year, Daniel...once you start flying at advanced you will no longer be eligible!

Szymon, in his first competition, improved dramatically in the second sequence, actually scoring highest. Good enough to get silver medal...well done indeed.

Sally maintained a good competent standard to get the bronze. Steve had just too much to make up after the dreaded zeroes in part 1.

Lots of smiles and laughs in the bar, where Jan kindly presented the gongs. Everyone enjoyed it and all done in the day. Thanks again and congratulations to all who helped.