Priseaca: Late Summer FAI Triangle

Throwback to 2023's last flight, a nice triangle in Priseaca, Romania.
Join me as I take off from the beautiful place known in the paragliding community as Priseaca, I thermal with a friend and then reach the cloud base and cross over to the other bridge of Leaota Mountains, Romanescu.

Unfortunately, my GoPro7 cut off the last 10' of the flight, but you can check it out on XContest:
https://www.xcontest.org/2023/world/e...

Are you ready to join me to the clouds?
00:00 - Take off 🛫
07:45 - ♨️ Meeting Mihai Cartu (nea' Mihai) and starting thermalling together
14:25 - 😶‍🌫️ Cloudbase at 2100 m a.s.l. Going towards Cioara, classical.
17:45 - there is something moving here, but I cannot hold on to it...
20:18 - so I abandon my attempt to reach Cioara Peak and turn back to safety
27:40 - ♨️ a good thermal (+2) that I lost too soon
34:25 - ♨️a thermal that got me back in the game. Difficult to centre it at the beginning, but one on it, I climb constantly, with a vertical speed of up to 3 m/s
42:30 - 🌥️Cloudbase at 2100. Setting up on a transition over to Romanescu. There is a little meadow in the sun on the way there and I hope it will give me a lift.
48:25 - Nothing but sink over the sunny meadow. Time for a brave U-turn
57:30 - ♨️ A crazy thermal taking me back to the cloud base, after a 900 m. climb
1:17:10 - ⛰️ Finally reaching Romanescu Peak, hoping to extend the triangle. Tried to thermal here, but it is very weak and I cannot really catch a good lift
1:22:00 - Nothing really works here, so I decide to "retire". That is going back West, towards to take-off, having Valea Bădenilor as a back-up landing, in case I cannot reach there. I have landed on Valea Badenilor the year before, 2022, on my very first flight on Ozone Rush 6.    • Priseaca Paragliding with Ozone Rush 6  
1:31:00 - I am over Valea Bădenilor, now I have a place to land, if nothing works on the East facing coast. Indeed, nothing was working and I landed safely in the bigger meadow on my left.

Lessons Learned:
1) Timing: I took off a bit too late, so I couldn't fly with the others and help each other. Also, because of that the day was probably not working so well by the end of the flight at almost 5 PM
2) There was some weak thermal activity on the way to Rosu Peak (17:45), that I couldn't really use. Maybe more banking, maybe larger circles?
3) My speed on the transition/return from Roșu Peak (from 21:00) was about 30 km/h. I guess I should have pushed the bar more.
4) I should try to ride ALL the thermals to the cloudbase, or at least to not lose the good ones, like the one at 28:00
5) I could have turned faster in the small thermal over Romanescu, but the lift was very weak, I was scratching, hoping for something better

What do you guys think, what could I do better, back in 2023?

#paragliding #mountains #freeflying #flying #adrenaline #thermals #ozonerush #cloudbase