http://www.aerosports.net/ECC.html

http://soaringspot.com/2010ecc

http://skyout.blogspot.com/

The NAM and the RUC forecast said that we would have plenty of lift. The GFS
said none. Hmm?

They all agreed that the wind would be strong out of the west (and not the
northwest, like the first two days), about fourteen knots at 2,000' but eighteen
knots or higher at 6,000'. The surface winds would be perfectly manageable at
nine to twelve knots, and they seems pretty light in the morning (as forecast).
West, of course, sends us to the east coast instead of down the peninsula.

Cloud base was supposed to be 6,000' and the forecast was for clouds. There had
been fog in the morning and you could see the low inversion rising.

Larry Bunner with support from John Simon on the task committee called for a
four leg 120 km task with a cross wind 34 km second leg. I had argued for a task
without such a leg, but I'm not really on the task committee, just a support
person for it. There was a lot of back and forth on whether calling a task with
the hardest leg by far as the second leg made any sense, but we were restricted
a bit by our set of waypoint and the geography. I suggested a large turnpoint
circle around the second turnpoint and that was adopted.

The sky was clear at first but then midlevel clouds appeared which I assumed
were associated with the low pressure that was centered over us and the scraps
of fronts that were in the neighborhood. Cumulus developed under some parts of
the overcast. It was blue with nice cu's to the south west, but overcast with
cu's to the north west around to the east northeast.

Launch was open at 1 PM, but we waited around as the nice cu's were too far away
to get to and we were uncertain about the lift in the clouds above us with the
overcast. Finally it looked to me like we had better get going or it was going
to get worse. I launched first, but broke a weaklink at 200' and had to land
back at the field. Broke another weaklink on the cart, and then was finally
pulled to 2,600' at 1:34 PM. I was let off in lift at 100 fpm.

Larry and another pilot were circling over the airfield at 1,000' and after a
few minutes I saw that they were getting up faster. The ground all around was
now completely shaded but there was a big cu above us. I went over to them and
averaged 350 fpm to 6,000'. I saw 22mph winds on my 6030 and I saw those
starting at 3000'. But the lift was smooth and we had plenty of distance to go
and time to make it so that we could cross the 10 km start circle around 2 PM.
There were about five of us at cloud base.

Larry climbed up through me and got a few hundred feet over my head. I let him
head out first near the edge of the cu and the edge of the start circle (nice
coincidence) so I could keep an eye on him. We had already lost track of the
other pilots.

It was only eighteen and a half km to the first turnpoint to the east southeast.
Larry did not find a single thermal all the way to the turnpoint. I was watching
this and slowing down I worked 95 fpm four km from the turnpoint while Larry was
down to 2,200'. Larry found 160 fpm at 1,800' just past the turnpoint while I
was at 4,000' two km from the turnpoint.

I went south from 4,500' to nick the turnpoint while I could not see Larry at
2,400' east and downwind of the course line. The wind speed was 20 mph at 275
degrees. It was hard to imagine how we would get back on track to head south to
the next turnpoint given this wind strength.

There were lots of cloud around. Mixed cu's with over cast and scud. Larry was
climbing eight km downwind of the course line, while I was climbing south of him
three kilometers downwind. Of course, as we climbed we drifted further downwind.

Larry climbed to 4,500' twelve km east of the course line while I climbed to
3,800' four kilometers west of him. I flew south then climbed to 4,500' 13 km
east of the course line while Larry headed back to the west and landed. Snagging
a thermal 13 km east of the course line I spent thirteen minutes climbing to
4,100' over Georgetown and the Georgetown airfield ending up nineteen kilometers
downwind of the course line. I felt that basically I just had to stay up no
matter where I was drifting.

I headed south southwest for the next twelve kilometers (when I should have
headed southwest) and not finding any lift landed short of the turnpoint.

After Larry and I left the airfield things only got worse. Pilots were flushed
and had to take multiple flights. Many pilots only flew short distances. Only
Mitch was able to pass Larry an hour later for second place for the day.