East Coast Championship Day 6

Although the weather forecasts varied greatly, each predicted light winds.  The pilots on the task committee, including me, wanted to return to the airfield for a change.  I even pushed for a small triangle task for the sports class, which so far has only flown directly to goal.  The open class task selection was more difficult given the varying forecasts for wind direction, lift, and cloud cover.  We finally decided on two triangle tasks; a large triangle if there were cumulus overhead at launch time and a small triangle if the sky was blue.

The sky was filled with gorgeous clouds by launch time, so we flew the larger task.  No one was playing "waiting games" either since it was obviously soar-able.

Many of the open class pilots were in a climb near the start circle south of course line with lots of time to waste before the first start clock.  Some, including Larry, flew through the blue north towards Greensboro. Others, include Sonny, flew back towards the airfield.  I hung around the start circle with the sports class pilots, Charlie, and Daniel.  As the blue hole opened between me and the course line and the start time drew close, I noticed Larry climbing quickly to the north at the perfect spot at the intersection of the start circle and course line.  It was too late to do anything about it, so I started at cloud base, but a few miles downwind of the course line.

Bob, Charlie, Daniel, and I raced along the clouds that lined the southern edge of the blue hole taking advantage of the strong climbs.  I slowed up when I noticed the first turn point was out where the advancing sea breeze sweep away all the cumulus clouds and presumably all the climbs as well.  Charlie and then Bob kept pushing and were soon low settling for any climb.  I had the turn point but wanted enough altitude to continue on so I turned around and flew over a large fire raging through a wheat field.  Although there was a lot of smoke, I didn't find a climb, lost my ability to glide to the turn point, and was soon down to Bob and Charlie's altitude.  Sigh.

I watched Charlie land as I struggled with Bob in broken and rowdy lift.  I pushed on towards the turn point and was preparing to land when I flew through a strong surge downwind of a tree line.  I snapped a quick turn and started a classic low-save struggle in broken and quickly drifting lift.  I repeatedly popped up and then fell down as I jacked myself up off the ground.  Three buzzards jumped out of the trees to join the fun.  The four of us worked together to climb back to 2000 feet (600m) before we moved on towards our respective destinations.

I repeated this low-save, climb-while-drifting-back, pushing upwind routine several times.  However, I was only gaining a mile or so on every cycle in the strong sea breeze.  I finally decided I was done and glided to the ground short of the turn point that I once could have easily flown over.  Bob landed one field closer to the turn point than I did.

I hovered down in a nice bean field along a paved road.  I finishing my packing when Jim approached from the north.  He somehow found a slope on the peninsula and landed downhill into the wind.  David and Charlie showed up a moments later with the car.

Sonny won the day with almost double the distance I managed to eek out.  He mistakenly thought pilots flying back for lift had already reached the turn point and were moving on when in fact he was way in front of them all.  Way to go!

Sonny visualizing his victory!

Unlike the open class, the sport class had many pilots complete their course since they were well away from the sea breeze.  It was good to see giddy sport class pilots that simply had to walk over to the tie-down line to get ready for the next day's task.

The scores are available online.

Flights: 1, Duration: 2:27, Distance: 56 miles