We do not understand cirrostratus clouds.

Yesterday we expected them to move out of the way for us, but they lingered in the southern portion of our Task area and brought everyone down.  Today, we expected them to stay in place to our west, but they moved over us instead, where they caused widespread pessimism at launch time.  So much pessimism, in fact, that the Director decided to reduce the two Racing Tasks to the bare minimum, 150 km for both classes.  This seemed like a good idea at the time, but as the day developed, it became clear that we should not have abandoned the "A" Tasks.  During the launch, good looking cumulus developed under the cirrus deck, something that did not happen at all yesterday.

Despite the undercall, pilots seemed to enjoy themselves on the short zig-zag course to the north.  All but two made to the finish, and the ones who outlanded were retrieved well before sunset.  Of those two, one of them withdrew from the competition, which brings our total down to 25 entries.

On the scoresheet, the point spreads were small, and it is fair to say that Robin Clark and Phil Gaisford won the day in the Handicap Class, and a group of seven, led by Bob Fletcher, tied for first in the 15 Metre Class.

What causes a high, thin deck of clouds to shut off convection so definitively one day and have almost no effect the next?  Who knows?

We do not understand cirrostratus clouds.