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

The forecast was for good lift - 700-800 fpm, like the first day,
but even less likelihood of cu's, and strong winds - 12 knots out of the south
southwest. And other than the fact that we didn't find much lift, the forecast
was pretty much right on. No cu's, and a wind 9 to 12 mph out of the south.

The problem is that there is no good location to launch in a south wind. We set
up to launch to the west with a strong cross wind. The first launches looked
fine, but the conditions up above were not exciting with no cu's, lots of wind,
and numerous pilots landing after short flights. Only Dave Proctor was able to
stay up at first.

Red shows the launch direction. The runway is at 300 degrees.

Then we spotted Joe Shmucker, who had dribbled north out of the airport and was
now low in the next field and attempting to head back and make it to the
airfield. With all of us watching we tried to determine if he could get over the
thin line of low trees on the north side of the runway. It could go either way.

Joe kept going toward us and the trees. I asked him later and he wasn't even
thinking about the fact that he was pushing into a head wind. He didn't see that
there was a problem.

As he got closer to the trees he finally realized that he wasn't going to make
it. He turned and was rotored into the ground. The glider was pancaked with Joe
still on the base tube. A broken keel to go along with the down tubes and base
bar. There is a nice video and I hope that he posts it.

After Joe was pulled out from under his glider with a face full of mud, we lined
up to get launched. I had a bit of trouble getting off the cart despite the high
angle on the cart. Greg and Jim Messina said later that they also had problems
launching.

I was pulled right to a thermal and with another pilot got right up to 2,700'.
When that quit I chased the thermal down wind and got back to 2,500' with three
other pilots. We were two kilometers down wind. Bruce was way down below us. We
were working zero lift at 2,500' and quickly drifting away from the airfield.

I saw Bruce heading back (or what looked like it) and headed back to see if
there were any pilots who got towed up behind us (including Greg) thermaling.
Turns out there weren't any and soon we all found ourselves landing. We lined up
to go again.

As we waited there John Claytor launched and crashed as his upwind wing came up
and spun him around.

Two of the safety committee members (Greg and Jim) got together and recommended
that launch be suspended. I then got together with Greg and Jim Messina (Felix
was a few hundred yards away) and they decided to spot the task. It was one hour
after the first start time, so the day counted. But it didn't count for much.

http://soaringspot.com/ecc2014/

Task 2:

Cumulative:

Launch video
here.