38 58 10.92 N,75 52 0.00 W,Highland Aerosports, Ridgely,
Maryland, USA

We called a 105 km dogleg to the southeast to end up in the
convergence zone southeast of Salisbury with a first turnpoint at the sport
class goal 38 kilometers out.

The forecast was for northwest winds, no cu's, 48 degrees at the top of lift,
strong inversion starting at 4,400', the ability to climb over 5,000',
convergence on the east coast.

Tasks for both classes,
open and
sport.

Tom McGowan launched and quickly landed. Mitch launched, pinned off at 1,000'
and climbed up to only 2,500'. We added two start times and with permission from
Mitch before he launched, we radioed him the task change (the two additional
start times). Tom McGowan launched and landed again. Finally the rest of us got
going.

I pinned off early in good lift and quickly climbed to 4,000'. The lift was
plentiful in the start cylinder and with Larry and Bruce and a number of other
pilots around it was easy to stay up and wait for a later start. I took off
first on the course at the third start time, the first anyone took, with a bunch
of pilots in tow.

I headed for a set of chicken coops five kilometers along the course line
remembering that our first thermal in the start cylinder was over a chicken coop
and the ground was still wet. We climbed back up from 2,500' back to over
4,000'. Larry and a couple of other pilots thermalled near us next to a blimp.

The gaggle stayed together and actually was a bit of a pain. These guys don't
have a lot of gaggle flying experience, it seemed. It was not difficult to make
it down the course line to the first turnpoint, but by the time I got there I
was ready to escape the gaggle.

I glided out away from everyone for seven kilometers and got down to 1700'
before I found the lift over a forest, marked by a couple of hawks turning low.
Bruce Barmakian joined me after I found the 300 fpm and started climbing. Later
John Simon came by us, but didn't find any lift and didn't come back to join us.
He landed right under us.

Bruce and I climbed to 5,000' and we took over the lead as the other pilots were
now way behind us (nine kilometers). The lift was good and Bruce and I worked
together to get to 5,300' before we approached the second turnpoint.

As we got close to the second turnpoint the lift grew weak and we got low having
to scratch up as we drifted toward it. We scratched up to 2,500' and there were
bits and pieces of lift here and there. The weak lift turned into severe
turbulence as we approached the turnpoint on our own.

The lift was there but mixed with big glider turning sink. I didn't want to be
close to Bruce.  We spent forty minutes getting our butts kicked until I
was able to climb to 2,700', enough altitude to get to bigger fields further
away from the sea breeze and the convergence. I'd had enough and just left the
first reasonable lift that we had been in. I wanted to be on the ground a lot
more than I wanted to be in the air.

I found some nice huge fields.

Those who had better fortune to not come into the turnpoint with us were able to
get up to the west, but still were killed by the sea breeze on the last leg
going toward goal. No one made it, although Bob was very close.

The flight
here.

The open results
here. The sport results
here.