Dec 12 - Wx is terrible, but there is always news to report...

Hi Race Fans:

If any of you have kept up with EY's international racing travails, it should come as no shock that I have arrived in an international locale and brought rain. As Gavin Wills said to me the other day, they had 6+ weeks of straight 7 day weeks of flying, flying, flying. Sure, that's what they all say!

Today is yet another no fly day. Sure you can go up and putter on the local ridge in rain showers, but who needs it. Team EY is almost together. Susan and Sarah are currently on the flight from Auckland to Christchurch and I expect to possibly meet them later this evening should the weather stay - in local pilot parlance - charlie romeo alpha papa

Most everyone is getting their gliders sorted out. There are the usual gremlins associated with shipping gliders around the world: Ben Flewett has a wonky radio (new one coming tomorrow) and Mario Keislling's ship arrive without his winglets or support kit (yikes!). I am sure there are other problems but I have not heard about them yet. I've got my Ventus, TM, just about sorted out and am very much looking forward to flying/racing it around this wonderful area as soon as possible.

I have not yet mentioned that EY Racing has added another sponsor to its ranks with the addition of Neilsen-Kellerman. Hooray!!!! As rowing coach, I have known about N-K instruments for the past 20+ years. N-K is the maker of THE state of the art rowing instruments. I never put a crew out on the water to race or take a rowing shell out on the water myself without one of N-K's products on board. With the addition of the NK ClearNav instrument to the portfolio, I can only expect great things to come for us racing glider pilots. Take a look at the ClearNav as it is something special!

As some of you know or don't know, I am also a rowing coach by profession and I think I can add a little color to Nielsen-Kellerman's advance into soaring instruments. There used to be a supposition in the rowing world about what Nielsen or Kellerman must be doing with all the profits from all the rowing kit they sell each year. The supposition usually went that that they both must have really nice rowing shells.

Well, having some inside information into Richard Kellerman's passion for gliding and the fact that his old glider is now sold, I would hazard a guess that all of us rowing enthusiasts are keeping him in new gliders and us glider pilots in a new whiz-bang instrument! So what do you have on order Richard?

Most of the GP Pilots are here at the airfield now. Vladimir Panafutin (and crew) and Christophe Ruch (and crew) arrived late last night. The only one's missing are Sebastian Kawa (POL) and Giorgio Galetto (ITA), but hopefully they are off touring and seeing the sights rather than chomping at the bit here at the airfield in the rain showers.

In news of the truly weird and bizarre, Uli Shwenk recieved an email with the details and pictures of a most bizarre crime in the U.K. a couple days a go. It seems a well known pilot's EB28 (think ASH25 but highly "tricked out") had its box opened up, the engine bay (complete with the engine) sawed out of the glider, and the rest just left in the box. So, if anyone comes across a hot glider engine/engine bay, I can put you in touch with the owner.

I promise to begin putting up more photos when they become available. Photos of GP Pilots huddled around their laptops just doesn't make for much excitement! I will be posting a little bit about the local landout fields tour I took in the Cessna 172 on my arrival. Think few and hard to see ones in certain areas where you really need them, and many not highly visible ones elsewhere.

Please, Please, Please, tell you gliding (and even non-gliding friends) about this blog as I need to keep the sponsors happy and maybe even add another one or two in the meantime. I promise to keep up with all the juicy news and give everyone a real feel for the flavor of the contest as we go forward so stay tuned.

See Ya! Tim/EY