If you want to continue with the hand launches then alter your flight path. Throw dead into the wind. At the top of the push to level turn the model gently to right or left so it crabs across the wind at an angle that let's it stay the same distance upwind or drift SLIGHTLY back to be in line with you. At the half way down point turn gently the other way so it crabs back to you. With only 20 feet or so you won't make it back to yourself and over to the other side.

Finding a thermal with only 20 feet to play with requires great skill or great luck. You can't launch and find. You need to KNOW there's one just ahead of you and launch into it. That is the same skills that free flighters use but we wait until it just passes and launch and the model turns downwind to catch up to the thermal.

Learn to feel the lulls and puffs. After a longer lull you'll feel a puff start to come. Launch then and try circling right away. The puff is the infill to the thermal that just passed over you. The lull is the general wind being slowed down by the upwind draw into the base of the thermal. At that point the thermal is still upwind but if you launch too soon you'll hit the sink that often preceeds the lift. That's why the FF guys wait for that infill, which is the general wind aided by the thermal's draw so it feels stronger.

Or if all else fails learn to think like a thermal.... Apparently it's a skill I've matered since folks are always saying that I spew a lot of hot air