We used to go to summer camp in Mauterndorf (Austria) for a few years.
A lovely little airfield, friendly people, excellent food. And quite
good gliding, too. Sometimes.

One day the operating company managed to have both tugs in maintenance
at the same time so we were forced to winch launch. Now basically
thats not a problem for us, we start around 90% of all flights like
that at home. But on this particular occasion we knew it was going to
be just a bit more exciting.

The setup:
The grass runway at Mauterndorf is not very long, maybe 750m of cable
available.
The winch itself - hopelessly underpowered, that's why the locals
never really used it.
The weather was fair, in the higher mountains we could see the first
Cu developing. Wind from SE, about 5-10kts.

Now if you have Google Earth search for Mauterndorf, Austria or LOSM
and have a look. You'll notice a hill to the South of the airfield, it
rises about 300m above the runway. The valley on the other side of it,
in the South, lies a good 100m lower than LOSM.
The only hope of getting a soaring flight was to immediatly fly around
the hill to the sunny and upwind side and find lift there.

So that's what Paul (instructor and experienced XC pilot) did. He got
about 200m out of the launch with his ASW20, flew out of sight and we
waited. Less than five minutes later the phone rang. All OK, he was in
the field we had inspected the evening before. We of course immediatly
went to retrieve him with the trailer. From the field, while
derigging, we could watch others climb away, one or two just barely,
though. After re-assembling the glider Paul launched again - with the
same result as the first time.

Two landouts with trailer retrieve in the same meadow on the same day.

We were not unhappy the tug planes were in operation again the next
day.

Regards
Marcel Duenner