An Unusual Day...

Before I tell the story of the day's flying, here's why the flying conditions on this day were unusual for Bo Peep...

An Unusual Day...

Before I tell the story of the day's flying, I'd like to mention why the flying conditions on this day were unusual for Bo Peep, in a number of ways...

First variance from the 'norm' - if there is truly such a thing, as the weather is always such an unpredictable fellow!... Although the wind was a bit on the strong side (for paragliders at least!) especially higher up, and the thermals were pretty good at times (although this is not unusual for Bo Peep!) the Sea Breeze took quite a while to come in and spoil things on the hill - which it does all too often, and all too soon! From a meteorological point of view, I would put this down to the relatively shallow 'depth of convection' - i.e. thermal/cloud tops were not particularly high (around 5500ft) so, on a relative scale at least, not a great deal of air was being 'sucked in' by the thermals which were being made by the very good heating the sun provided on this day.

Second anomaly. Mostly, we rely on the sea breeze front to climb out from Bo Peep (whether pilots realize it or not). Generally, 'The Big Idea' is to catch a half-decent thermal (if you're lucky!) around - or out in front of - launch, and then (having somehow avoided having a mid-air in the melee madness, and managed to kept one's nerve reasonably intact) drift diligently over the back, (hoping) to connect with the (fabled) sea breeze front. The key thing when trying to do this is to really 'hang on' to that good (or any) bit of lift, staying in the very best bit of it at all times - if not, you will usually get 'dropped' and miss the boat to cloudbase! The difference today (it seemed to me) is that many pilots climbed out without really needing the sea breeze front to do so. Unusual for Bo Peep, especially when the wind is a tad on the breezy side!

Third irregularity (at least to begin with). The prevailing wind was quite a bit off to the North, and the Sea Breeze came pretty much only from the East. More often than not, the sea breeze comes both from roughly the East (from Eastbourne direction), and roughly the South West (Newhaven direction). This effect is due to the Beachy Head peninsula, which means that the coastline in that area faces both roughly East (Eastbourne and Pevensey Bay) and roughly South West (Seven Sisters, Cuckmere Haven, Seaford, Newhaven, etc). Hence the Sea Breezes usually come from both of those directions - but not so much on this day!

Note 1. You could also add a third direction the Sea Breeze comes from (often reaching the Bo Peep hill first, in fact!) which is from the South to South East, as it rushes up the river Cuckmere valley, past High and Over and Alfriston and up into the valleys that lead up to the backside of Bo Peep. This is due to the Sea Breeze effect being a relatively 'low-level' one - often less than 2000-3000ft deep, which means that it will penetrate (often much) further inland over low-lying land than over higher ground. Even a difference of 10's of metres can make all the difference sometime!

Note 2. Sometimes, there is a (very useful indeed, *if* you can make use of it!) lifty convergence area that sets up as the prevailing wind is 'pushed up' over the top of all of these localized Sea Breeze and Valley effects, as described above. It can make it very buoyant around and behind the Bo Peep hill area, again *if* you can get up into it. The hard bit is getting up and away from the hill in the first place - which is all too often the case! And, having gotten up into it, all too often the keen XC pilot goes off on a downwind / crosswind glide thinking that they've 'made it' - with joyous whoops and cries of: "Southampton here I come!" - only to land very shortly thereafter, wondering what the hell happened, and having found out that it wasn't nearly so buoyant once they left this magical convergence area.

Anyway, back to the day's flying!...