Euroglide is athe gliding race over more than 2500 kilometres through several european countries. Euroglide is organised by the Venlo Eindhoven gliding club, the Netherlands.
Euroglide 2024 route is Venlo - Hodkovice – Lüneburg – Mainbullau - Zielona Góra - Venlo, a total distance of 2600 km.
If a glider lands out, the have to find a suitable airfield for the next day and arrange take-off facilities themselves. To a certain extent, it is allowed to travel towards a turnpoint with the glider in the trailer.
The contest is currently underway with two days having been flown.
There are three classes. Pure gliders with 7 entrants. Turbos with 30 entrants and Self Launchers with 33 entrants.
Euroglide 2024 winner Matthew Scutter with crew Sophie Curio.
Matthew Scutter
After four days flying Mathhew Scutter completed the Euroglide 2024 course. He flew a total of 2,590km. His first stop was Köthen in Saxony-Anhalt, 454km from the starting point Venlo in Netherlands. The next day he flew 736km to Wasserkuppe then on to Großrückerswalde. His final leg back to Venlo was 566km.
He was one of onlky two competotors to complete the course. After his win was confirmed he wrote,
Out of 69 gliders on the 2662km Euroglide task, we had just two finishers, myself in 5 days and TP an EB29) in 11 days. Honorable mention to a PURE Arcus that got to just 100km short with 4 outlandings enroute.
Euroglide was a lot of fun and I'd recommend anyone to get some friends together and have a go as a group. Engine absolutely not necessary but of course much more comfortable.
'For me the secret was as simple as identifying the upcoming change in weather in the second week and committing to flying absolutely first to last thermal while it was good. After my finish there was only a few hours good soaring left in the entire six days following. I'm quite comfortable with travel-by-glider, but it's a lot easier when yo can pick your own turnpoints rather than going where you're told!'
