Dates
Saturday 22nd July – Saturday 29th July

Saturday 22nd will be registration day. Task days will run from Sunday 23rd to Saturday 29th inclusive, with prize-giving and a party on Saturday 29th July.

Meet Director
Innes Powell

PR/Sponsorship
Charles Norwood

Venue
The competition will be based at Croft Farm Water Park. Just 10 minutes from jct 9 of the M5, near Tewkesbury, the water park offers a variety of accommodation and water-based activities for families, as well as a café, climbing wall, clubhouse, and a marquee area which we have permission to use for briefings. Graham Steel has been to visit and gives it the thumbs up, saying all the accommodation looks clean and tidy and the location should be very convenient for all potential sites within a two hour radius.

There are a number of good landing fields all around the site and even a lake for those wanting either a swim, or to practice their acro after arriving in goal….or both!

Pilots can book accommodation online, but it would be better to talk to Allan on 01684 772321 for full details.

Sites
We have had permission from the following clubs to host up to 70 pilots (65 plus wind dummies) with just 48hrs notice: Malverms, Long Mynd, North Wales, South East Wales and TVHGC; Avon will advise after their next committee meeting. We are hugely grateful to these partnering clubs and delighted that they share our excitement for holding a round in the UK.

We also have a local liaison contact, Stuart Mayson, from the Malverns club who has been hugely helpful already.

Tasks
Adrian Thomas/Tim Pentreath
We have spoken to Adrian and Tim P about potential task setting. We believe there are some very exciting options to set 80-100km zig zag downwind tasks from most wind directions with the goal being Croft Farm. In light conditions we may also be able to go for closed circuit tasks from the Malverns and Blorenge. Graham reliably informs us that most decent triangles go straight over Croft Farm lake too. Adrian and Tim will hopefully dream up tasks to cover all potential weather conditions and produce waypoint files for us to put up on the site in good time.

Transport
The competition price does not include anything for retrieves or transport to launch. We are however investigating costs of potentially arranging coach hire from Croft Farm each morning to whichever site we decide to go to. It worked perfectly for the epic North South Cup day from Tinto in 2016 and as long as pilots accept that once they arrive at the site they are responsible for their own return journey to Croft Farm, whether by paraglider or otherwise, then the same could work for our UK leg. A daily cash fee depending on distance to site would be charged on the bus each flying day. More info to be posted when we have quotes from local operators.

Live Trackers/Scoring
The plan is to use Brett Janaway’s live-trackers for both scoring the comp and ensuring we know the location of all pilots throughout the week. Trackers will be issued at registration and it will be the responsibility of each pilot to keep them charged for each day’s task. Back-up devices need to be carried by all pilots, but will only be requested should the organisation’s device not remotely download its igc file.

Chris Trow will attend the comp to act as scorer and technical director.