Day 3.

Later Start
Around midday the top cover started to thin and the first signs of usable convection appeared to the east. It was another hour before a self launching ASH 26 got airborne and started to report back that it was working up to 6500ft.

Both Duo’s launched at about 2pm and the first climb over Hongrie was 4 knots. Moving South we found another strong climb on Trainon gave us the confidence to push on to Authon. We failed to find a climb at Authon so I made the decision to push South again to some Cu at the end of the Vaumuse. Arriving under this it we found a week climb and cloud base 1000ft lower. We had found strong sink between the climbs so very quickly we were down in the low hills near St Auban doing battle with broken thermals and the local glider from the French national centre. This struggle lasted for over an hour and we constantly found the climbs stopped abruptly at 4000ft and we came to the conclusion there was no possibility of re tracing our steps. After a radio conversation with 775 who was under the Cu on the Lure Ed and myself decided we had to take our chances crossing the valley on to the south side of the Lure. Eventually the pull of the of St Auban got us and we dropped in.

Towing back to Sisteron we released when we could reach a local ridge next to the town and then local soared in the company of 775 for another hour in week evening thermals.

Colin