38 58 10.92 N,75 52 0.00 W,Highland Aerosports, Ridgely,
Maryland, USA

http://soaringspot.com/ecc2012/

We started the competition with a brisk wind (15 to 20 mph) out of the west,
with a dogleg 61 km task to the east southeast toward the coast. The Sport class
had a similar task, just a little shorter, 44 km. (See the tasks at the URL
above.)

I launched in my Wills Wing Falcon 3 170 right after Mitch and Paris at 1:37 PM
after only a few pilots got into the sky. Paris pinned off at 800' AGL mislead
by his 6030 that had been adjusted by Steve Kroop to give him a different sound.
Paris thought incorrectly that the 50 fpm that he found was screaming lift.
After that he looked at his vario to see what the new sounds actually meant.

I pinned off at 1,500' in lift that averaged 80 fpm. Paris soon came in under me
then climbed through me as we slowly climbed and drifted quickly down wind.

Drifting over Greensboro in the west wind I was in better lift, averaging 130
fpm as I climbed to 3,000' AGL. Not worrying about the start time I took the
first start clock still circling at 2 PM.

I had been with Paris and Mitch, but they were able to climb better than I in my
single surface glider so I had lost contact with them. Paris went back to take a
later clock and Mitch hung back a little for the second clock and I was just
outside the 10 km start cylinder at the second clock at 2:10 PM, and still
turning and drifting toward the first turnpoint.

Working 60 fpm I finally left when the lift numbers went negative and went on my
first glide. I hate doing this in a Falcon, but I needed to get to the next
cumulus cloud ahead of me and find some positive lift. There was Rich Cizauskas
quite a ways below me and Bob Flipchuk just above me so although I hadn't wanted
to leave until I got to cloud base at 5,000+ feet it looked like I had to go.

I was making 50+ mph downwind toward the turnpoint and looking hard for lift as
I watched Rich out in front of me and 500' below me. I was going so fast and
looking so hard for lift, taking a different line than Rich to maximize the
possibilities, that I forgot to make sure that I nicked the turnpoint, missing
it by 200 meters. I was already down to 1,300' AGL as I came by the turnpoint.

I had seen Mitch higher and circling just before the turnpoint, but neither Rich
nor I found lift under  him. Rich landed just past the turnpoint and I went
a little further but not to the south east along the course line, but just
downwind searching for lift. We had not found lift since we both left that
previous thermal.

Paris took the 2:30 PM clock after going back upwind and then won the day with a
fast time on a short task on a windy day. The wind took us toward the coast so
that's why the task was short even as we thought we were doing a cross wind
second leg. Mitch was first to goal and second for the day. None of the Sport
Class guys made their goal.