We started the first day of the 2011 Bogong Cup with a 10 AM pilot
meeting at Treats, a gourmet restaurant near Settler's Tavern. Wesley Hill, the
meet organizer and scorekeeper, brought tee-shirts for us all to start off the
meet. The meet is free and we only have to pay $20 for membership to fly Mystic
Hill.

We set up an AAT task (assigned area task) with ten kilometer radii around a
turnpoint at the Ovens intersection next to Myrtleford hill, over to a ten
kilometer turnpoint at Gundowring and then to the Mt. Beauty airport. AAT tasks
are won by the pilots with the fastest average speed. There is a minimum time
that you have to fly, in our case two hours. You can fly as far into the
turnpoint cylinders as you want as you judge how long it will take you to
complete the task. It's pretty easy to understand.

We got to launch at Mystic Hill with a XCSkies forecast of seven knots north
northwest winds at launch up to eleven knots at 8,000' (top of the lift on a
blue day) west southwest. The climb rates looked good.

There were a good number of paraglider pilots around, a few in the air, and many
launching. Olli Barthelmes, launched first, then Carey from Finland, and even
though they are below launch, I launched into the nice winds coming straight up
the launch.

I went over to the left to Olli and Carey and the lift was broken and weak. Olli
then dove to the right ridge and Carey and I followed. Olli didn't get up and
landed. Carey followed and then a few minutes later I landed with them. Soon
Scott Barrett launched and then landed with us as did all the pilots in the
Bogong Cup. And plenty of paraglider pilots also.

We all went back up again at 2 PM to give it another try. Carey was up the hill
first and off first. He stayed just above launch. Olli and Scott launched and
got up. I launched and didn't get up. Carey and Andrew landed and that ended the
day for us. Scott and Olli fought the winds which were much higher than
forecasted.

Scott got over to Clear Spot and worked up the spines. Olli turned downwind and
jumped over to the ridge line to the right to get to Mt. Porepunkah. Scott got
high at the Clear Spot and jumped over to the ridges to Mt. Porepunkah and
worked them to get over the mountain. On the radio we heard him go to Mt.
Porepunkah three times as the winds and blew him back away from the Ovens
turnpoint.

Scott got up and watched Olli behind him. Scott was able to make the turnpoints
and land twenty one kilometers from goal. He didn't know where Olli ended up.

Don't know how the scoring will go. It is by position only. This is our first
attempt at this type of task. It should be interesting.