Manilla XC day something

Yesterday turned out way better than the morning clouds made it look--200K better. Super fun flight with a very technical section between about 100 and 140K that dropped most of the lead gaggle. One thing I've learned here is to trust my own judgement--I'm not very good at gaggle flying when it comes right down to it, and if I just do what I think makes sense I usually do better than trying to chase the gaggle down. In a non-XC comp you have to play the gaggle game, but with this style of flying the gaggle is often wrong--one person will lead out off the gaggle, and they all chase whoever that person is. So really it's decision making by one or two guys anyhow, might as well be me on my own. The gaggle does improve the odds of finding lift, but around here that's not normally a problem. Yesterday I flew the gaggle for the first 1/4 of the flight, then on my own after that, although I kept crossing paths with the gaggle as the day wore on. I made one good tactical decision to stay upwind over some rising terrain, that's what made the difference at about the 130K mark--most of the lead gaggle went down. Chrigel did whatever he does, I didn't see him all day but must have landed within 5 K of him.