O yes, Longer Ron, you wouldn't be thinking of Tibenham, Norfolk, perchance?
I flew there for their first EVER regional competition. The organisation was a bit nervous, wanted to tick all the boxes the first Briefing, and by the time we were all lined up and ready to launch, alas, the sea breeze had kicked in, and the fluffy cu was now some distance away to the west.
I had a bright idea and passed it on to the Director; there is no reason you couldn't let us be towed up to say 4,000 instead of the usual 2,000.....for reasons of safety, of course, the director can be quite creative.
So the first glider took off, and like penguins on a cliff, we all peered up to see what happened to the bold pilot. Ten minutes passed.
And he called down by radio the following message:
"There's four knots of wave up here!"
Wave? over Norfolk? where the hell were the mountains kicking off wave over Norfolk? ours not to wonder why, we all buckled in and took off, I was behind the Condor so it took quite a while to get up there....and we all vanished on task. Except for one pilot who when he reaslised the cumulus had moved inshore, went shopping; when he returned and found us all departed, he jumped in without making enquiries, and thought he was on to a good thing when the tuggie neglected to wave him off at 2,000 - so he was quite smug about getting away from a 3,000 tow.
O yes, one more thing. Don't worry about the pile of rocks at the end of the short runway, what counts is the airspeed of the tug, not the obstacle clearance! I asked Brian Spreckley once, long ago, what should I do if I think the tug isn't going to clear the hedge?
He answered "wait until it hits the hedge, and then pull off.'
Of course it never did. The only time I thought the tug was not going to clear an obstacle I dumped the glider....