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Results here:

Open: http://soaringspot.com/rkm2009/

Rigid: http://soaringspot.com/rkmr2009/

Sport: http://soaringspot.com/rkms2009/

Unlike at the Worlds, we scored all five pilots every day.

The last day of the Rob Kells Memorial Competition turned out to be a great one, even though it started off looking a bit iffy. With a lack of cu's and some cirrus in the area we decided to forego the triangle task and go back to our 165 km, up and down highway 17 task. You can find the task itself here. This task is the longest one called from the Ridge and it was well made with quite a few pilots in goal.

We figured that with an lighter easterly wind it would be possible to go north and south on US 17 after we worked our way west to it from the Ridge, ending back at Shell. As launch time approached we could see a lot more cumulus development over in that area and very few where we were.

After a very wild first tow and again a broken weaklink, I got a very nice tow behind Kerry to a small cu forming to the north east of the flight park. It wasn't very strong at first, and there was a big shelf of cirrus just to the south, but I held on waiting to see what would happen. What happened was it got stronger after the cu disappeared and then reappeared and I climbed up to 5,500'.

Zac, the Jeff's, Dustin, Glen, Andre and Jonny were just downwind four kilometers and I noticed that there was a small cu between me and them. We had a start time of 2 PM, one hour after the launch time opened, so I didn't want to go downwind too fast, but it looked like they were staying up and it was far enough from the edge of the start cylinder so as not to crowd the plate.

I found 600 fpm just before I got to them and after a while they came and joined me in the better lift. We climbed up and hung around before heading out for the first start time. A whole bunch of other pilots joined us, which made for a fairer start and task, and with the lighter winds pilots were able to stay in the start cylinder for an hour.

We (about twenty of us) raced to the first good cu's to the northwest and were rewarded with strong lift. Jonny and Andre got away and headed north to the next turnpoint which would put us on an east west road. The cu's were thick as thieves now and it was easy to race from cu to cu.

Southern Florida is filled with cu's most of the time. Lots of moisture even in this drought. Soft air, great flying, just so much fun to be in the air.

We hit the turnpoint at highway 31 high after strong lift and began a hard leg to the north. Jonny and Andre were trading off with Dustin, Jeff O'Brien, and Zippy for the lead. I was four kilometers behind them.

The basic strategy was to go upwind to the best looking clouds and climb up as you drifted back to the west. A few times I really had to push strongly upwind to get in the good stuff.

Coming back from the northerly turnpoint I wasn't finding any good lift and pushed again to the east to get under some better looking clouds. These weren't working and I though my goose was cooked, when I went back tot he north to get under a few wisps that turned out to be great markers for the lift. I climbed out as the guy below me landed.

There was a nice looking cloud over arcadia and I came in under a pilot still heading the other direction to the last turnpoint to the north. It was already 5:30 PM. I knew that Dustin, Zippy and Jeff O'Brien were already in goal and I was thirty kilometers out.

There was a convergence and a sea breeze from the west at goal which was evident from the shelf of lower clouds to the west. I was concerned about turbulence associated with the approaching sea breeze.

I climbed high in strong lift at Arcadia but didn't tale it to cloud base stopping at 7,200', the highest I had been all week. My 6030 said I had 1,500' above best glide to goal. Goal at Shell was 30 km away. Phill Bloom was a few thousand feet below me climbing.

I headed out but took a line a little bit to the right of the course line toward the sea breeze. This was inadvertent as I was following the road a bit rather than looking more closely at where I needed to be going.

This track took me off a better line that would have been right on course and right smack dab under the convergence, which i could see out ahead of me. But I wasn't too concerned as my numbers kept being positive through out the final glide. It started of at 12.9:1 to make goal.

Phill wouldn't get as high as me but he took the course line and went under the convergence when I was just on its western edge. He found lift there and was able to get to goal with an extra 2,000'. I glided to the last landable field just before goal, missing it by less than 2 km.

Dustin was the first pilot in, followed by Zippy and then Jeff O'Brien. All the US team was flying together on the radio and these three flew near each other the whole way. By winning the day Dustin was able to win the meet and beat Andre and Jonny.

We had four days of outstanding flying in southern Florida. Unlike in previous meets at the Ridge we called lengthy tasks and completed them. The east wind was actually favorable getting us out to the west for lots of wide open flying over pasture lands.

Few pilots have had the opportunity to come down to this extreme end of the US. It is a wonderland so far away from everyone else in the US. It is out in the middle of the Everglades. It is a great place to fly, but it is hard to get the word out in a convincing manner.