On Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at 3:37:00 AM UTC-8, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Mon, 12 Nov 2018 20:06:57 -0800, son_of_flubber wrote:

I've never driven the winch, but I've sat in the cab and watched an
international cadre of winching masters practice their art. At the two
sites that I've done winch launches, operations continued in significant
crosswind. Crosswinds seem to be less of a no-go with modern winches.

On sites with severe cross-wind there's always the parachuteless option.
I've seen (and flown with) this setup at The Mynd,

The Mynd is on top of a long, steep north-south ridge with the runway
parallel to the ridge and close behind the soaring slope. Beyond the
runway there's an additional small rise with a valley containing moorland
and trees. When the ridge is working, launches and landings are flown in
a 90 degree cross-wind. Obviously they can't use a parachute on the
launch cable because, when the ridge is working well, the end of the
cable would end up over the hill and probably in the downwind forest: the
airfield is 250m across at its widest and scrub and trees start 100m
downwind of its lee edge.

I don't understand.

At glider release the cable is pointing up into the sky at an angle of ... well, I don't know ... let's just say more than 60 degrees.

I've never seen a cable being wound in drop below an angle of ... let's say 30 degrees (more like 45 probably, but let's go with 30) until the parachute is within 100m of the winch and speed is falling off.

Half your 250m airfield width plus 100m to the trees is 225m. Even if the cable swings around directly downwind the parachute is going to be at least sin(30)*225 = 112m up when it crosses the trees. Your trees aren't that tall.

It's a different story if the cable breaks, of course.