Another wave flight

Moshe writes about April 23:

Wild spring day. Thermals were higher than expected, so I headed out cross-country to the northeast, across the wind. But I found rather poor thermals from near Moosilauke to the Franconia area.  I chose not to go to the mountains which were even farther downwind.

Instead I headed upwind (northwest) to try to get within range of Dean - and stumbled into wave!

I climbed to 13000 feet, but with a 50-knot wind across my course line, the 32 miles glide back home was still a challenge - and the arrival altitude promised by the glide computer was completely meaningless.

I tried to make way crabbing sideways within the up-wave.  But that was very slow, and it also wasn't leading in quite the right direction.  So I plunged upwind through wave sink to the next wave cycle.  In my low-performance glider that cost a lot of altitude!

Back in the Post Mills area, it was very turbulent below 3000 feet, so the landing was "interesting" too. 

Visibility was great, The Whites were "right there," and I could see Lake Champlain through the Waterbury gap in the Greens.

In retrospect, I think the Franconia area was in down-wave, thus the bad thermals. Had I gone downwind closer to the mountains then maybe I could have found up-wave - or not, as the wind would interact with the mountains.  The few clouds I saw in the area with bad thermals looked curly, so they must have been roll clouds. The thermal that threw me into the wave increased to 10 knots up high near the upwind edge. The wave lift was about 4 knots, weaker at 13000 feet, but I was reluctant to go higher without oxygen.

Flight log here.