International Night (Aug. 10)
Last night was the big International evening; where each country’s
representatives bring a special food or drink from their home country to share with everyone else. This is typically a small dish, maybe a dessert and then a side of some alcohol. The Swiss team brings cheese, the Dutch bring their “orange drink” (who knows what’s even in that), and we brought S’mores and Jack Daniels! The S’mores were a HUGE hit.

We brought all of the supplies from home, aside from burner and roasting sticks. We ended up cutting the marshmallows in half and the graham crackers into quarters to make small S’more sliders. Then, just as everyone back home grows up doing, we went around and picked up sticks from the woods. The only thing that was not authentic was the fire. Since the event was hosted in a tent, we couldn’t have a campfire, so we borrowed a small burner from the Belgian team. Rather than sit there and make everyone’s S’mores I handed them the stick and the mallow and let them make their own! Everyone seemed to really enjoy them, especially the kiddos. It was a real treat to be able to seemingly walk around the whole world in one tent!
With an important day of flying ahead, I called it a night at around 11:30, although I heard they finally closed the tent down at 1:00 am. Moments like this remind me that we are, in fact, coming together from all over the World!

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August 11 Task report:
Once again, today I logged another 5hrs of Soaring. We were tasked with a TAT, virtually the same one as yesterday but with an additional turn point. Today was my best flight yet. 347k @110kph (68.35mph)!! Mark and I stuck together the entire flight and really worked well with one another. Flying wing tip to wing tip in the good air and
spreading out as things got weak, we were able to make it around the whole course without any big mistakes! We maxed out the first turn and for about an hour we were actually flying above Austria, making it two new countries that I’ve flown over on this trip!! At the back end of the first cylinder we made our turn and the Cirrus had started to come in making for a slower cross wind/up wind leg, but together we pressed on. The 3rd leg was a great downwind dash and we did not struggle at all. The 4th leg was another crosswind and this is where we found ourselves at our lowest altitude of the day, and then we found ourselves in the best thermal of the day: 9kts! After that climb it was another long glide that got us pretty low but one final 8kt climb brought our task
on final glide and we both had an energetic 40km final glide. I placed 23rd on the day with the winner’s speed being 115kph. So between 1st place and 25th place the speed differential for the day was only 3mph. That’s 7minutes difference. Even though each race takes hours to do it really is a game of minutes. The caliber of this competition never ceases to amaze me.

Tomorrow is our last day of competition, followed by the closing ceremony on Saturday. Hopefully I’ll finish out strong and end on a high note

David McMaster

You can find the latest contest scores at:
https://www.soaringspot.com/en_gb/junior-world-gliding-championships-2022-tabor-2022/results

For the latest news from the JWGC:
https://www.ssa.org/12th-junior-world-gliding-championships/