https://airtribune.com/questxc/blog__day_15

On Wednesday I really didn't want to be in the air as it was just unpleasant.
The air kept jerking me around and although I had a low safe at 650' AGL, it
just did not feel like a day to go around the Green Swamp.

On Thursday, Majo launched around 10:30 and despite the lack of cu's at that
hour (they soon showed up), she stayed up for an hour and a half. When she
landed no one had remembered that she was flying and couldn't remember when she
was hauled up and who did it because it wasn't Zac who didn't know she was
flying either. Her first words were why was no one else flying. That got
everyone going.

Actually it was a good idea to get going early as there was a 30% chance of a
thunderstorm in the afternoon. But it took us a while to get organized.

I wasn't hauled up by Zac Majors until almost 2 PM. Niki Longshore and Yoko
Isomoto were next in line behind me. Unlike on Wednesday the air was actually
pleasant and fun to fly in.

Niki and I got together right away with good radio communication but without a
radio on Yoko we didn't connect up with her.

The sky was full of cu's and we were concerned about over development as some of
the cu's had high tops. We climbed to cloud base at 5,000' and flew from one
grey bottom cloud to another pushing against the light west wind that varied
between 3 and 8 mph as we headed north to the Turnpike and highway 33
intersection. Niki and I stayed at about the same altitude so it was easy to fly
together.

The lift was often less than 200 fpm on average, but in some thermals got to 300
fpm. We found 286 fpm just south of the turnpoint and let the 8 mph west
southwest wind push us in a generally north direction hanging on to 5,200'.

On our way north we noticed that the forested area south of the prisons a ways
to our west was shaded by a large cloud. When we got a good look at it it wasn't
high, just spread out. It looks like it could be trouble but wasn't yet.

As we made the Turnpike turnpoint and headed south southwest toward the Center
Hill turnpoint the big cloud to our west and in the direction of Center Hill
suddenly started getting quite vertical. In fifteen minutes it had gone to a
quiet cloud to a roaring cloud.

We decided that going toward it was a bad idea and headed south southwest upwind
to the nearest good looking clouds. The cu's in the direction of the Center Hill
turnpoint were also uninviting having been damped down by the emerging cu-nimb.

I pushed a little too far and fast for Niki who went for a little closer cloud
than the good looking ones that I went toward. Down to 1,500' I finally got to
the upwind edge of the cu and found 70 fpm on average, and enough to keep me up
and occupied.

Meanwhile Niki was struggling and down to 500' just a little north of me. She
thought that she was landing when she found the lift and worked hard to stay up.
In the third thermal under this cloud I finally got something over 100 fpm and
Niki was right below me but still low. She drifted back downwind and starting
climbing well, as I got up to 3,200' and high enough to head up wind to some
small but promising clouds.

The cu-nimb was now exploding right in front of us and we could see the rain and
the top of the cu-nimb starting to come toward us. It was still quite a ways
away so there was plenty of sunlit ground between us and its shade. I was 15 km
out from Quest and Niki was a few kilometers north of me.

I found over 200 fpm in my little cu's to 4,500' and turned to head for Quest as
fast as I could to escape any negative consequences from the cu-nimb. Niki,
behind me, was not happy about our situation either.

There were cu's ahead and I was getting light sink so I only had to take three
turns on the way in just to be safe. By the time I got to Quest the high out
flow from the cu-nimb was about to shade the area around Quest and the Quest
landing field also. There was no discernable wind direction near the ground.

I picked a direction and landed. Yoko came in a few minutes later. She knew the
task, but I never saw her on the course so don't know if she did it. Niki came
in soon after Yoko.

The cu-nimb blew itself out, but we had plenty more cu-nimbs around us and then
after to the east south east. No rain or thunderstorms here, but elsewhere there
were.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?flightId=1610153944

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/getScoring.html?scoringId=319

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/1389830

http://wxc.fai.org/module.php?id=22&l=en&date=20160324&contest=INT&gliderclass=hg1

http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/28.4.2016/17:55

http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/ranking-hg-open/