Duo-Delbert Yesterday, (Sunday, August 30th, 1998) the Delbert Trophy was reclaimed by Steve Metz and Paul Remde for the Minnesota Soaring Club. I'm sure that members of the Red Wing Soaring Club are already planning (maybe even enroute as I write this) to claim the trophy back. The day didn't seem to strong at first in the vicinity of Stanton. In fact, on my first flight I landed after only 24 minutes. My excuse is that a localized high overcast layer had moved in and was shutting down the thermals near Stanton. After landing I waited for an hour to let the overcast layer move off. Meanwhile Steve Metz had been able to stay up during the hour by going to the clouds NE of Stanton. He called down and said I should give it another try because it was looking much better. I decided to go for it. I towed off at about 3:00 and immediately climbed up to 6,000 ft MSL in OK lift. The clouds looked pretty good but they were not very tall and the lift was for the most part weak and difficult to center. Some clouds allowed me to climb at 2-3 knots and other didn't work at all. I hooked up with Steve near Hastings and we decided to give the Delbert flight a shot. The clouds North of Hastings were starting to look pretty good and the clouds to the South (back to Stanton) had more or less vanished. We got down to around 2,000 ft AGL near River Falls airport but eventually found a weak thermal that carried us back up near cloudbase. The lift seemed to me to get weaker for the rest of the flight but we were able to find plenty to make it to Benson without any low scratching. When I arrived over Benson Airport I spotted one of the RWSA Blaniks flying over the edge of Bald Eagle Lake and I flew a few circles with it. What a beautiful sport this is! Upon landing Steve and I were warmly greeted by the friendly members of the RWSA and other airport locals. We landed at about 5:00. Our crews pulled over on Hwy 61 and were waiting just outside of the airport so as not to give away our arrival. Robert Herndon crewed for me and Jim Cunningham crewed for Steve. Without them we could not have made the flight. We really appreciated their help. They beat us to Benson and were in radio contact for the entire flight. We treated them to the traditional dinner at the Black Stallion on our way back to Stanton. The flight isn't very impressive in terms of the distance flown, but it was a lot of fun! I highly recommend it... in either direction. So the challenge is out there for members of the RWSA. The MSC has possession of the Delbert Trophy. Come and get it! Good Soaring, Paul Remde