At the time of take-off we could see the cloud starting to come in. A few minutes before the gate opened the poms were in the perfect position to start and we were not much below them. The set themselves up to do a run into the start a minute before the gate opened and we followed a few minutes behind. All the other gliders were still climbing and at least 500-1000' below us, so we had a good gap on them.
We caught up with the poms pretty quickly. Some other gliders had left not long after us, but the Germans waited 15 minutes, which seemed extremely risky. It was slow on the first leg due to upper level cloud.
After rounding the first turn point we headed for a large cloud and Turns and I chose to go to the western end of the cloud along with a few other gliders, the poms and another glider went to the eastern end of the large cloud. I lost 3-4 minutes on them at this stage. They got a good climb and gained quite a lot on us at that point. Those three went on to place top three and came in 10 minutes ahead of me. This climb was the decisive climb.
Heading to the second turn the clouds looked OK but I was determined to stay high because conditions were deteriorating. Halfway down the second leg I pickup up 1m/s that turned into 2m/s. I called Turns in, but she decided not to take it and looked for better -- giving up this climb cost her 15 minutes as it turned out.
I stuck to the policy of staying high even though it felt a bit slow and it paid off. Halfway down the second leg the cus went daggy and just wouldn't work. I cruised along under wisps just getting bubbles, but nothing to turn in. Getting a bit low I accepted a weak climb and a number of gliders joined me that I didn't know were around.
The sky looked great ahead. The high level cloud had slipped away and the sky on last 40km of the task looked brilliant. I wasted a bit of time with a weak climb rather than pushing on into the good weather because of my stay high policy. I think I lost a three or four minutes at this stage. I again took too much extra height on final glide, especially considering the sky looked so good ahead -- this would have cost me a couple of minutes -- and pushed the nose down for a fast final glide and finish.