My first off field landing occurred 20 minutes after my first contest start, after poking around in 1 mile visibility and getting substantially lost. August 1991 in Elmira, NY.

For those that have forgotten (or never knew), August visibility in the Northeastern US used to be atrocious... and in pre-GPS days it was very possible to get lost :-). I used 970 feet of a 1000 foot long hay field.

The very next day, again in terrible visibility, I flew myself into an unlandable valley between Bath and Hammondsport. This time I knew where I was.... and I was beginning to think I might end up landing in Keuka Lake. Getting truly desperate, I selected a corner of a corn field where the corn was stunted. It was up against a steep hillside, the landable area might have been 300 x 60'. A terrible situation, but best available in this horrid valley. Reaching for the gear handle on right downwind, I took one more look around in the thick haze and I saw the unmistakable bright orange of a brand new wind sock at a private airport, about 3/4 mile further up the valley (it had not been visible when I selected my corn field landing spot). Right downwind for trouble turned into left downwind to sweet relief. I'm sure glad those days are history.

Here's a short article I wrote for my club that deals with field selection and process. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gK...I-rAdMt01cHRV6

If you have good field selection discipline and good decision making and pattern discipline, you are 95% of the way home to keeping your glider shiny.

My favorite article on off field landings is by Kai Gertsen:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By...05jaGNWbFRuMnM

best,
Evan Ludeman