Today’s morning weather wasn’t nearly as promising as yesterday’s: we once again had a mostly overcast sky, with low cloud. But improvement was promised, and indeed it appeared, with enough sun reaching the ground to produce plenty of flat-bottomed cumulous clouds by 10am.

Rather too many, in fact. By scheduled launch time (11:45) clouds to the north and east were building high enough to produce areas of rain. The launch was repeatedly delayed waiting for the sniffer to report reaching a decent altitude. Then just as a 12:45 launch time was finally confirmed, a dark cloud drifted overhead, dumping a few minutes of rain on all gliders. But this quickly passed, and a 12:50 launch worked.

In the face of uncertain weather, all classes had short area tasks. Rain showers were forecast to be possible throughout the task area, but in the event all rain stayed east of home, while the tasks sent pilots into the (relatively) glider-friendly airspace west and northwest. This allowed all pilots to complete their tasks, with respectable winning speeds. Sean and Sarah flew well as a pair through most of their task today. Sean, finishing 12th. A small stumble at the end of the flight cost Sarah 8 minutes, which is expensive in points.

Today we look at the 20-Meter Multiseat class:

Here at WGC2026, this is almost a one-design class: 14 of the 16 entries are the Schempp-Hirth Arcus. (The others are a Schleicher ASG-32 and an HpH Twin Shark.) The Arcus has been an extremely successful design from the moment it appeared, in 2009. To date, around 420 have been produced, with a bunch on order. Its handling is excellent – remarkable for a glider of its span and weight. Some forward sweep of the wings allows room for a comfortable rear seat. It carries waterballast well. And it loves to fly fast.

This class requires that two pilots – the same two – be aboard for all flights. In some gliders, there is a designated pilot and a tactician; in others, the two aboard trade these duties throughout the flight. It’s generally agreed that two pilots – who get along well – can do a better job than one: the combined demands of flying a glider, reading the sky, dealing with modern instrumentation and the need for onboard “data analysis” typically tax the bandwidth of any single human.

Another difference as compared to other classes is that this one is strictly “one glider per country”. With a teammate in the rear seat, you don’t get to have one flying a couple of wingspans away.

Addendum to yesterday’s comments about the Open Class:

It’s not quite true that four of the five JS-5 entries are being flown by former Open class world champions. One pilot is home-country hero Sebastian Kawa, who has won world championships in pretty much every class except Open class. And it’s worth noting that EB-29R cockpits contain some formidable talent, including reigning world champion Felipe Levin and 5-time champion Michael Sommer.