Skyport to Bates

Dean Stratton
Sunday, 4/24/05
Skyport to the Power Lines to Bates

Conditions weren't looking too promising this morning but it turned out to be a great day. Plenty of pilots at launch, lots of new faces.
[A few shots]

I wrote an e-mail to Truax after my flight on Sunday asking for some feedback on the conditions I experienced. Since then I’ve had a couple requests to post it, so here it is. The details begin at the power lines, about ¾ of the way to White Ledge.

“Funny thing happened on the way to Bates”

I left the power lines for Bates only because I had to. After Castle Ridge the North really began to show its teeth. As most of you know that have run the range, the further you get down the range towards the power lines the closer you get to the top of the ridge line which exposes you to turbulence on North wind days. In the stretch between Castle and the power lines the North was throwing heavyweight blows to the thermals. Twice near the power lines and right over the ridge line I found myself in an odd mix of convergence and thermals that sent my vario off the scale 1600+ and tossed me like salad. Pipkin was running down range with me and he said after the flight he was getting worked as well. Like some of you, my bump tolerance is very high, but it was all I could do to keep the glider inflated. Since the idea of throwing my reserve over the power lines isn’t very appealing it was an easy choice to head for Bates.

I left with 4800 and in the beginning I had an easy 7+ glide quartering an 8-10 WSW wind. In between the time I left the power lines and about half way out to Bates there were moments when I obviously had a slight tail wind, go figure. Right about the ¾ mark it got even stranger when I entered some fairly strong turbulence and sink that lasted until I was over the highway. After the flight Truax suggested there might of been an opportunity to jump over to Rincon and make the run to Ventura. As I was approaching Bates I certainly tossed the idea around. Looking West near East Beach there were white caps with an estimated 15 from the WSW coming all the way onshore. Looking East towards Rincon Beach it appeared to be the same. In between those points there was an area of much calmer water extending approximately ½ mile offshore with a defined cloud street along portions of it. From my vantage point there were cumis over Rincon as well but they appeared to be fairly soft, so I wasn’t sure I had the glide to get there and I wasn’t real confident it would be working well enough if I could. I decided to put it down at Bates and wait for the wind line to catch up, and then make the run downtown.

Grantham, OJ, Jeff P. and a few others were there and for the next 20 minutes we watched the conditions get even weirder. First, the convergence line offshore got much more defined and stretched a mile or so West of us and as far as the eye could see around the bend East of us. The clouds over the highway running from Tiers to Rincon really blew up as well. What was really wild to see were 10-20 seagulls circling up under the convergence line offshore right in front of Bates. That was the first time I’d seen that. Since landing I would say the avgerage wind speed at launch was 6-7 WSW. There were many times the flags went limp. Two pilots launched and went straight to the beach. Ron M. showed up, launched his Zaggy, and it too went straight down to the beach. Over the next 10 or 15 minutes the wind direction changed several times, it even blew offshore. How can it be blowing 15+ consistently onshore on both sides of Bates but be blowing in light and sometimes offshore at launch? That was enough for us and we threw in the towel. I heard later that day from Pipkin that SD arrived after we left and got in an hour long flight at Bates.

I’ve made this fairly detailed hoping to get feedback. After experiencing the North wind at the power lines, intermittent tail winds on glide and turbulence out front, I can only come to one conclusion. It appeared the North winds rode up over the South draw and touched down offshore creating the convergence line. Is it that simple or could there are other influences involved?

SD's Comment

I think the convergence was actually more of the lower level SW bumping up against the thermal block (bubble) rather than a NW over SW. I probably would have played for the Rincon. I didn't see the wind coming into La Conchita while I was airborne at Bates, so you might not have been able to stay up in ridge lift, but sometimes you can thermal up and over the peak, or try the sheer line offshore like the seagulls were doing.

Do be on guard when going to the La Conchita cliff when there is wind everywhere except La Conchita. The highest I've ever been at Bates in a PG was in a convergence. When I went to La Conchita I fell out the back into some wild twisty surging air.