We challenge the Sport Class pilots to go around the Green Swamp
given the light winds and the numerous cu's that appear after the 11 AM pilot
meeting. It's a 97 km task that will take them at least three hours. The 50+ km
tasks take them almost two hours.

Airtribune server was down so no Live Tracking and no scoring from Live
Tracking, which on the first two days worked very well for us. Really speeds
things up and cuts down a lot on the work for the pilots and scorekeeper.

We decided to send the pilots clockwise around the Green Swamp so as not to
bother the sailplane pilots on the Grand Prix when they were coming into goal.
But it turned out that I think a bunch of the pilots were right in the way of
the gliders when they went through their start gate. Total coincidence.

With five tugs and five tug pilots and twenty nine competitors and mentors the
launches go very efficiently and quickly. Quest Air is super organized and we
have all these volunteers. Thanks so much to them.

We got up quickly at launch and I was with three of my four mentees. We switched
teams today. Unfortunately I could not hear any of them on the radio. I have no
idea if they could hear me.

I quickly lost track of my mentees and then went back five kilometers to find
them. No luck at all as I searched for the T symbol on the top of gliders.

Headed south assuming that I could at least mark thermals for other pilots.
Sport Class pilots like to stay in thermals way way too long, so it is easy to
catch up with them. Just north of the Seminole Gliderport we interfered with the
Grand Prix.

Tom Lanning was around and headed south, west of the glider port. The pilots had
been for the most part too far east and weren't hugging the eastern edge of the
Green Swamp as I was earlier before I finally went back and tried to find my
mentees.

I headed southwest over the Green Swamp staying with the clouds and ignoring the
blue hole to the south where the sport pilots kept going toward in order to feel
comfortable over open fields. Of course, it was perfectly fine to go over the
trees in the Green Swamp as it is always possible to bail out to the open fields
if needed.

I found Pete Lehmann in his Sport 2 helping his mentee over the trees under the
clouds. Heading further southwest I flew toward the turnpoint at the
intersection of highway 98 and 471 at the bottom of the Green Swamp. Lots of
cu's on the way. Got close to the cloud base in one and while leaving from a
good distance below ran into 900 fpm and just made it before the room became
white.

I was calling out the lift locations but had no idea if my mentees could hear.
Going north along the west side of the Green Swamp there were thick, dark, black
cu's ahead. It looked like over development. The sunny west sides were humming
though and I got right back up to cloud base.

Approaching the turnpoint I was wary of cloud suck. From the shadow to the east
you could tell the cu-nimb there  was quite high. It had a lower cloud base
and I wanted to be sure that I could get over to open spots if it started to
pull me up too much.

I also wanted to get as high as possible as the shadow was killing all the lift
downwind along the course line. I also needed to get away from the shadow to the
north of the course line to get to any possible lift that the cu-nimb had not
destroyed.

I went toward the black monster just below the cloudbase altitude and pulled in
hard when my climb rate went up. I saw that I could make it to the first break
in the base. Heading northeast I soon got back over landable areas and toward
the few flimsy cu's that were available. Unfortunately, they didn't work and
after lots of lift and no trouble flying I was soon on the deck by the lumber
yard at the top of the Green Swamp. A little later Michael Williams joined me.

Later we watched Makbule, one of my mentees come over at about 2,000'. Later she
said she was worn out. Tom Lanning and John Simon, subbing for Greg Dinauer, came
over later and they were the only ones to make it back to Quest as a cloud
street set up.

Scoring will be late due to the Airtribune server being down.