The forecasted high for Tuesday was 69 degrees. Warm if you're in
New England or even Georgia, but pretty cool for Florida and for hang gliding in
thermals. The RAP forecast was for 10 mph northwest surface winds but NAM said 4
to 5 mph. I decided that I liked that forecast better for a short closed task
given that the height of the lift would be between 3,000' and 4,000' and the
lift would be moderate.

https://airtribune.com/2018-quest-air-cross-country/blog__day_25

The sun was warm but the air was cold on the ground. The wind was pretty brisk
out of the northwest so seven or eight of us were down in the south east section
of Sheets field near where the hurricane took out a massive oak.

There was not chance for cu's so we weren't waiting around for them to develop.
Patrick Halfhill was off first followed by Will Ramsey. I launched forth after
we saw the pilots sustaining flight but not getting too high. Pinned off at
1,700'in 240 fpm lift and climbed with Pat and Will to 3,200'. The inversion
layer was obvious. The forecast had already told us that we were not going to
get very high. The wind was light at 3 mph out of the northwest so NAM was right
about that also.

I led out and after working light sink over a large open field at 1,600' for
five minutes finally found 175 fpm that  took me back to 3,200' Pat was
down below and working back up from much lower and Will got away from me and we
lost him. John Simon launched while we were working this weak stuff and found
better lift behind us.

I kept leading out now that Patrick was low and Will had disappeared. We were
headed to the northwest to an intersection at the northeast corner of the Green
Swamp. I was basically always in search mode given how weak and broken the lift
was and how we were not getting high enough to ignore the search for thermals.

The next few thermals averaged between 45 fpm and 115 fpm with a 6 mph head
wind. I watched as Patrick again climbed up from quite low. At this point I
wasn't sure that we had a chance to complete the task. I was thinking that as we
slowly progressed we might just turn around and head back for Quest. No one else
was out there with us.

As we headed back east toward the next turnpoint (or maybe toward Quest) we saw
John Simon coming in below us heading for the turnpoint. Finally there was
someone else out on the task, maybe it was worth doing after all.

Patrick and I left a couple of kilometers east of the turnpoint at 3,300' and
headed to the east northeast north of Mascotte, over open territory but we were
finding nothing. The friendly landing areas were getting scarce further to the
east northeast. Finally I headed north toward an open field that I had landed in 
before. Pat was even lower and south of me.

Before I got to the filed I found the lift. At almost 300 fpm it took me to
3,500'. As I got high there was John Simon, who had found even stronger lift
behind me, just slightly above me. Pat was working his way back up from below.

We were high enough now to be able to easily make it to Gator field, our
turnpoint. Again few landing areas ahead other than Gator, but we could relax
given our altitude. From 2,000' just before the turnpoint we were able to
climbed back to 3,300' before turning back to the southwest into a 7 mph
headwind.

We were heading over a massive tree nursery surrounded by swamps with a couple
of open landing areas. We were too far away from Quest to make it back there.
Down to 1,300' AGL over sketchy landing areas we found 190 fpm, which took as
back to 3,100'. From here it was an easy glide back to Quest Air, although our
next turnpoint was Bay Lake another 10 kilometers to the southwest of Quest.

I led out heading for Quest thinking that the best course of action was to land
there and not risk taking the last turnpoint as we had already risked a lot.
Patrick was down before Gator field. I figured if I found some good lift, then
perhaps I would continue.

North of Quest I found 300+ fpm back to 3,100' as I watched Will just barely
squeak it into Quest below me. John was behind me and just on the course line to
my west. I headed toward Larry Bunner, who had not left the field, and was
circling up west of it. As I got to him John came in under us.

I led out with 3,500', with John and Larry just a few hundred feet below, toward
the Bay Lake turnpoint. It seemed like the lift had really turned on with the
last thermal averaging over 370 fpm.

We flew the last six kilometers to Bay Lake without hitting anything worth
turning in and, despite a desperate attempt that we made to get up in nothing,
all landed near the waypoint. Later we saw Mick Howard do that same.

https://www.xcontest.org/usa/flights/detail:davisstraub/13.3.2018/18:33

The high for the day was 66 degrees.