It rained this morning, but we went up the hill as the forecast was good. The winds were strong from the south, and they called a 132km zig zag task with two turnpoints.

Look what Tom and crew found on the road on the way home.

We launched into the stiff breeze and ridge soared until we found something to circle up in. Davis and I along with Tom Pierce and Zippy topped out at 12,000+ at cloudbase before the first start. I was intent to not take the first start, and figured we'd have to stay cool at cloudbase for another 15 minutes. Davis pressed back toward launch and we lost him. He took the third start.

We stayed pretty high, and I took the start with Zippy, Tom, and Dave Scott. It was a fast run under a cloud street toward the first turnpoint. After the street, I could see people struggling ahead, so I put on the brakes a bit. Everyone bunched up looking for lift at the first turnpoint, I ran upwind to get the turnpoint first, then went downwind only to find broken lift. Rather than fight with the poor climb I had and drift over the biggest crossing in the task, I went back upwind to a gaggle of about ten pilots climbing well.

I was on the bottom when I arrived, and just couldn't find anything. The gaggle had pulled up the lift with them, and I was seriously floundering beneath. I watched them top out and go on glide. I was dejected, but decided to reset, and just fly my own race. I headed north looking on my own. Eventually under a cloud with light rain, I found a respectable climb that gave me enough height to run for a peak crosswind.

The next crossing was stressful. There was a long low sloping area of trees with a ridgeline atop. I had to go deep to get to a workable ridge, but it would have been probably impossible to buck the wind back to the road. There weren't good landing options. I might have been able to run around the ridge downwind to the road.

The ridge wasn't working. The wind was just blowing too hard. I made a turn over the ridge and decided to continue blowing downwind. Soon I was low trying to get toward the paved road and hoping for a low save. I got just enough to stay up and kept working toward the road. Once again I found light lift to drift and survive in.

Near the second turnpoint, I finally found something worthwhile to turn in, and took it up. Ben Dunn eventually joined me and it was my turn to thermal like a frenchman. I cut him off badly I thought. Ben said it was no worries. I saw two groups of pilots turning after the turnpoint, so I pulled rope and dove upwind 4km to tag the turnpoint. I thought the two on the right were climbing better, so I went to them.

I was rewarded with 900fpm until I had 15 to 1 33km out to goal. I decided with the strong tailwind I'd go for it. The next 30km were amazing. I had ground speeds at times near 100mph and every cloud had strong lift under it. My numbers kept getting better until I was flying as fast as I could and still going up. I arrived 4000ft. over the ground and saw Zippy at goal. I was second for the day.

Seven in goal so far. I lucked out and made up a lot of time after the big mistake near the first turnpoint.

Airtime: 3:10. Flights: 1. Miles: 82