Timothy Conover writes:

This was the first time I have ever really been able to fly side
by side with other pilots, in the same thermals or on the same glide (not
counting in the confines of a ridge lift band, which is a different thing). At
my home site we never really launch more than one glider per cycle, and there
just aren’t enough of us to make it happen. And while I have been to the Team
Challenge, I missed that one great day people still talk about. So, here I
finally flew in a gaggle, and I wasn’t a total traffic menace, but other pilots
were generally climbing faster, and not falling out as often as I. And it turns
out a Discus and a race harness beats my kit by a full point on glide.

Friday morning in the clubhouse Tom Lanning channeled Mike Barber in Mike’s
sermon on pilots working too hard in thermals. Pulling too much VG, losing
turning precision, pushing out too much, half-stalled, turning too big and flat,
falling out too often, generally getting worn out and beat up, making too many
adjustments and losing the thermal (the last bit also leads into Eric Carden’s
“Thermal 1-2-3”). It all came back to me, with a sinking feeling in my heart,
because Mike himself gave the talk at Team Challenge 2013. Yes, it describes my
flying the previous five days, doing all I know how to keep up with my Green
Swamp team. Saturday I was grounded by a head cold, but I imagine a lot of
pilots in that wide but weak thermal, launch gaggle, were doing their best to
achieve the Zen trick of climbing faster by working less hard.

Later Friday another verse from Mike’s 2013 sermon came back to me. He said when
he’s thermaling, that’s his time to relax and plan his line for his next glide.
Easy for a Sky God to say! But his point was that when he’s on glide, he
concentrates very hard on not just speed to fly, but finding better lift lines
and bypassing sinky areas.

Finally, from my own log book: in 5 flights I had 8 hours airtime and total 108
miles, and the 4 times I made it out of the start cylinder became my 4 farthest
X-C flights ever. The Leeward trip was also top-5 for duration, but I was so
busy it didn't feel that long. That day I managed to actually fly with my team
and it was a blast, with Davis leading us on a merry chase from cloud to cloud.
With abundant thermals and a good team, even a mediocre soaring pilot can get an
inspirational taste of the rewards of cross-country flying.