https://airtribune.com/2016-quest-air-open-national-championships/result

With light winds, cu's and a hint of convergence possibility in the center of
the state the task committee called a task north to the Turnpike south to Deen
Still road and back to Quest, 102 kilometers. The sport class task was just a
half sized version of the same task. And we launched the sport class early so
that they could fly with the open class if they wanted to.

Launching was smooth and quick and pilots stuck right away. The lift was not so
great but it was plentiful. It took me eight separate thermals to get up to
cloud base at 5,300'. But I had plenty of time so that didn't matter.

The cu's were filling the sky and pilots were spread out turning and trying to
stay out of the clouds. While I thought I was going to take the first clock, the
lift was so good at the edge of the start cylinder (and the winds so light) that
I stopped inside the start cylinder and playing at staying out of the cloud,
spent seventeen minutes just staying at cloud base and waiting with Oleg and
John Simon for the second start.

We were a couple of kilometers south of the start cylinder circumference when
the second start opened which did make quite a difference as the pilots at the
cylinder edge were also high and got the jump on us.

Heading north it was a 10 kilometer glide to the next cu and thermal just on the
southwest corner of the Grass Roots airfield. At an average rate of 460 fpm I
was at 5,700' in no time. Still there were plenty of pilots out ahead of me.
Larry started a bit lower so I was giving him the good news from in front.

It was all blue from about five kilometers out from the turnpoint and a nine
kilometer glide to it without finding much lift. Coming back five kilometers
more I could see all the pilots ahead of me high just north of Grass Roots. I
went under them but they left right away.

Fortunately I had felt a little bit of lift that I flew threw behind me and I
went a kilometer back to find the core. I hit it and climbed at 500 fpm on
average to 6,000'. There apparently was a bit higher cloud base here and I again
escaped being sucked into the cloud.

I headed south toward a huge black bottomed cu that stretched from the highway
out to the west. Pilots were heading to the west and after a while I saw pilots
turning under the cloud in that direction. I couldn't see the point of going
west to get under this cloud when the east side of it was right over highway 33.

As I got closer I saw that all the pilots that were high and well over me in the
last thermal were now down below me. Some of them marked a 440 fpm  thermal
a little to the west and I joined them to 5,600' again just barely escaping
cloud suck.

Flying south on the west side of 33, five of us out in the lead with Jonny
Durand we found 570 fpm just southwest of Osborn field. We climbed to 5,700' and
escaped the cloud to continue south. Ahead was a dark cloud near the fire and
over the Green Swamp.

After an eleven kilometer glide I saw that none of the five pilots ahead of me
over the Green Swamp were getting up so I shaded to the left toward the Seminole
glider port and found weak lift. Larry found better there and was now able to
catch up with me. Tullio was just a little behind us.

Things fell to pieces at this point. I was able to work light lift enough to get
over the southeast corner of the Seminole glider port and hook into 360 fpm to
5,600'.

Heading south, I could hear from Larry that he was getting only 100 fpm at the
Deen Still turnpoint. He moved west under a better looking cu and climbed to
5,000'.  I came into the turnpoint now behind many of the pilots that I had
been able to catch earlier and then headed west to get under Larry. Perhaps I
should have gone upwind to the east where other pilots were turning (although I
didn't see them, there were nice cu's in that direction).

Not finding much lift in Larry's spot I headed north to where they were circling
now and found very weak lift. Things had completely changed in the areas where I
was flying from when we headed north and then back to just south of Quest.

After laboriously climbing to 2,500' from 1,300' AGL I headed to the northwest
just to try something different. I spotted two pilots turning high above and
there was another pilot low heading toward them. We got there at 900' and
started working the very light lift. It was a little after 5 PM.

We spent the next 24 minutes climbing to almost 3,000' before that pilot headed
south as he hadn't made the turnpoint yet apparently. I headed northwest toward
two pilots circling high but found nothing underneath them. Landed by highway
33.

Larry had landed at the Seminole glider port when I started working from 900'. I
was not quite able to make it high enough to join him.

Many pilots made goal today obviously not flying in the same conditions that we
found ourselves after going south from Quest.

Task 5: