Tow rope crisis?

Going for the World Championships you wanna be prepared, know the rules of the game and then try to play better than anyone else. I order to achieve the first one of the above I carefully studied the local procedures available on the organizer's website. Most of it is well known and the similar for all comps. Reading trough I suddenly go: "Hang on, hang on, go back ... wtf?"

Paragraph D, point 4.1.1 states: Mandatory additional equipment: [...] - tow ropes (minimum length 50 m, optimum length 60 m with TOST rings on each end).

(graphic stolen from www.spreadshirt.net)

Are you for real? I honestly believed that this is what the entry fee of 750 Euros is for. Or if not the entry fee then the tow fee. We pay for the tow and you don't supply means of connecting the glider to the tow plane? How is it supposed to work? How will you know which rope belongs to which pilot (name tags?) Or are we donating all the ropes into one bucket?

Why am I actually whining? Simple. This is the World Championship and one would expect that there will be competitors coming from all around the world. They have long ways to travel and some pretty strict baggage allowance for the flights. A 50 m or 60 m long rope with rings will weigh about 10 kg I'm guessing. This would be about 50% of my total allowance. What about other flying equipment that has to go as well? Not mentioning all the clothing and other personal items plus the questions from customs officers. That's pretty inconvenient, isn't it? You hear every now and then about the economical crisis but is it really that bad? Come on guys, you can do better than that ;)

I'm sorry but I just had to let it out. It's still gonna be fun and we'll get this bloody rope organised...somehow.

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WWGC 2013 final countdown

Only 6 weeks left and we'll be on our way to France. We are now finalizing all the remaining bits and pieces but all in all we're pretty much ready. And so is our team logo. I don't know about you but I think it's pretty awesome:

All the flights, accommodation and vehicles are booked and the glider is all ready for pick up in Poppenhausen.

here she is

I still have some training to do on the LX9000. I've never used any LX instrument for navigation so it's all new and exciting for me. Luckily there is a PC desktop version available for practice. It is extremely important to be comfortable with the glider equipment and the navigation software in particular. The airspace situation in the contest area is tricky and changes every day ... critical part.

instrument panel

I'm slowly getting really excited. On the other hand I'm happy that I can go there and just enjoy flying the beautiful glider with in fact no outside pressure and struggle put on me. I can hardly imagine a better situation than this. It's gonna be fun!

hell yeah! tons of it!
(graphic stolen somewhere from the world wide web)