14 years ago
The first part of the Brazilian Open Acro Championships at the Marobá beach in Presidente Kennedy has ended. Finally 17 pilots (incl. 4 swiss, 1 argentinien and 1 hungarian) are participating.
During the 4 days of the event (2-2 training and competition days) a number of around only 30 flights were flown in total by all pilots together. The reasons for that were various.
There were 2 towing boats, but one of them got damaged by the waves while putting it into the sea right on the first day...
The location tends to be very windy from midday or the early afternoon till the night. The time period of the ideal towing conditions (between not enough and too much wind) was always just a few hours long and with only one towing boat things were happening very slowly. The waves on the ocean were always big which was bad for the equipment (both the boat and the gliders) and made the climb-ups very "turbulent" and unefficient. At the end due to the location and technical problems only one run could be completed (during saturday and sunday). It was free announced program with 3 maneuvers. Pal Takats took the lead with a very clean program flying an Infinity, Heli-to-Heli and Heli-toSAT with his U-Turn Thriller. The other favourite Hernan Pittoco (SOL Supersonic) started his routine a bit low and did not have enough height to finish his last maneuver safe over the waves which put him to the 4th place. Yves Berlovitz (Paratech) came 2nd with an Infinity Tumbling and clean Heli combos, while his synchro partner Remo Niederer 3rd (Thriller). A third swiss pilot, Christophe Guillet came into the Top5 also flying the Thriller and the first brasilian was Renato Lopez (Supersonic) in overall 6th place.
All pilots spent the last days flying together around Castelo and today they are travelling to Linhares, the location of the next event coming up this weekend. There is a sweet water lake with a big city nearby and it is expected to be much more ideal for the second competition.
Results: http://www.termal.com.br/maroba/resultado.php
Photos: http://www.termal.com.br/maroba/fotos.php