Egged on by Carl Wallbank we call the longest task ever called in a Florida competition, just 5 km longer than the one from Quest to the Florida Ridge. But this task was to the north given the southeast winds (near Quest) and south winds near Lake City (north of Gainesville).

The winds appeared to be too strong in the morning as the British pilots set up (Jeff and I already had our gliders set up). But as the cu's formed (and they weren't supposed to according to the RUC), the winds laid down a bit and we were encouraged by the lighter conditions to go out to the launch area.

The start gate was set for 1 PM, with three start gates twenty minutes apart. We had delayed the start hoping for the winds to calm down.

I was off first at 12:30 with Rhett towing me up in super smooth air, in spite of all the wind (18 mph, southeast). It was easy to get up to cloud base at 5,300'. I hooked up with Gary Wirdham as we waited for the other pilots to get towed up and climb on up with us.

Finally Gary and I took the second start gate. The others would wait around for the last start gate at 1:40 PM.

I got low right off the bat and had to dig myself out of a hole slowly. Then I got low soon again just north of the prisons. I had just seen Gary go north toward the Villages high at cloud base while I had to search around under clouds trying to find where the lift was coming from. It would be an up and down day for me the rest of the day, but not as bad as it started off.

Getting low meant that Dustin and Jeff O'Brien caught up with me south of Ocala about 60 km down the course line. I was struggling working to stay up over houses and trees as Dustin went on his merry way over my head at cloud base.  Jeff stayed to the east of the course line up wind as I wandered downwind just trying to stay up and have a safe place to land if needed.

As I thermalled about five miles southwest of the Ocala airport Dustin, who was over the airport, got on the radio to tell me that a Citation jet was coming my way. Too late, I could hear it pass over me, not too far away. I've been seeing far too many aircraft up close lately.

There were cu's every where, but they were very thin and the sky was gray above them. There were two fronts to the north (cold and occluded) in Georgia and there were high clouds associated with them coming down our way.

I kept working my way to the west further off the course line as that was where the better clouds were. I didn't worry about being downwind of the course line, because I knew that the wind would turn from southeast to south the further north I got, and I could make goal just coming up under it from the south. Jeff was making sure that he was near the course line, but the clouds over there didn't look nearly as good and there were thicker high clouds there also with more shading on the ground.

Dustin warned us at 50 km out (in our 210 km task) that it was getting more difficult. He was over a lot of shaded ground. I was a bit further to the west and the sun was out there and I could get under good clouds, still the climbs weren't great.

Jeff had come in under Dustin over to my east over Interstate 75 but he wasn't able to get back up and landed about 30 km short. Dustin stayed high and made it in to goal just as the sun came out over there.
 
I worked the sun and the better clouds to the west and came into goal 18 minutes later. Andrew came in another hour later.

We heard as we were flying that all the British pilots had gone down early.

http://ozreport.com/data/2009flyercup/93P_flyercup.htm

http://ozreport.com/data/2009flyercup/93P_flyercup_tsk.htm

http://ozreport.com/data/2009flyercup/93P_flyercup_tot.htm

We chose a shorter task than we would have liked because of the fronts up in Georgia. We did see their effects even down here in Florida with a shelf of high clouds on our course line and to the northeast from there. Thursday it looks like the winds are stronger and more southerly, with a likely route up high 301, the same as the day that Dustin and Jonny went far.

But the fronts are still in Georgia (there was a front in Georgia when Jonny and Dustin went far) so they will likely cut us off.