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Organiser's Comments
Limited comments as it's been a long day and I'm going away tomorrow morning.
The car parking was generally rather tight, and Ian Cooper's team did a sterling job to get everyone in. I had originally intended to use the assembly field itself for car parking, but when I checked it on Friday after heavy rain earlier in the week with more expected, I found that it was impossible to get onto it from the road without 4w drive, so we had to rearrange things at short notice. Well done Liz Yeadon for getting us the use of the area around the derelict farm. Without this the later arrivals would have had to be parked over at Hawley Lake, which would have doubled the longest walk to the Start.
I would like to echo the Controller's comments regarding those who took, or tried to take, a short cut over the road crossing at Minley Farm. The map, and the taped route, directed runners to a manned crossing point. There were manned crossings over this road because there are a good many bends, and cars travel (much too) fast along it. In fact, my wife and son spent some time first thing in the morning clearing away the wreckage of a fence where a car had left the road the previous night! Besides that, the area you cut across was marked on the map as ‘settlement - out of bounds', you could have been disqualified if caught. And it was all for no purpose! As clearly stated in the Final Details, the road crossings had a time allowance, so you gained nothing from taking a short cut anyway! Some of those who were stopped from taking the short cut seemed not to realise what a timed crossing is. If you were one of them, please take the trouble to find out before you run again, rather than risking disqualification or injury taking a short cut that will give you no advantage.
Finally, to finish on a more positive note, thanks to everyone for coming, and to all the helpers who made my job pretty easy on the day. At least the rain held off most of the time, and the weather was nowhere near as bad as we had feared. There were a few hiccups, most notably the caterers van getting bogged down in the mud trying to get onto the assembly area. Many thanks to Jerry Newcombe for using his van to drag it out.
Ken Ricketts, BKO
Controller's comments
Firstly, thank you to Ken for organising everything and keeping most of the bad weather away and Martin for planning the courses. In addition to planning, Martin spent a considerable time in the forest updating the map and also removing some rhododendrons where they caused a planning problem. Forestry work was on-going right up to the end of the week but by that time, the maps were already being printed.
The far control on the timed out section of southern road crossing was not punched by some runners and these were mostly on the Short Brown, whereas for Light Green upwards there were few non punches. I suspect people were just running too fast and not reading all the information. More worryingly, some runners decided to ignore most of the taped route and run almost direct, thereby possibly causing a traffic/road accident. In future could runners please be more considerate to the organiser and his risk assessment of the event.
Control 209 was mispunched by a small number of runners who opted for punching another control 60m to the south-west. Control 209 was in the centre part of a small gully and 195 was a pit. During the event I checked the control with one of the disqualified runners and he very quickly realised the mistake was his. He added he should have, of course, checked the control code.
Control 232 was in an area of forest that was not updated from the earlier map and with hindsight the map could have been improved in this area but it would have had to be added to the long list of remapped items that the planner would have had to undertake. The kite was hung as high as possible in the small gully but the emit stakes are incredibly short and the ground was very soft. I should have found a longer stake and the kite would then have been higher.
I hope you all enjoyed the day.
Charlie Turner, SLOW
Planner's Notes
The combined Yateley and Minley forests work well to provide mainly fast, not highly technical orienteering, but hopefully maintaining interest throughout as the terrain constantly changes. This worked best on the longer courses, though the quality of the shorter senior courses was limited by the restricted length and terrain available for them in Yateley. With parking to the east of Minley, courses had to be started and finished in Minley, and it was complex to separate competitors prior to and after each road crossing.
Course lengths were based on the leader's time at the CompassSport Cup event here last year, scaled to give a winning time of 67 minutes. Tuomas Tala, the winner last year, ran 67.12 today, so lengths seemed to be just right. I informed the EMIT team afterwards that their atomic clock was 12 seconds out!
The final stretch through Minley is highly visible and fast, and only pits and ditches can hide controls. I watched many people running towards 232 from the crossing. Many were aiming well N of the control, perhaps seduced by other runners and some unmapped small bushes. A bearing set just S of the direct line would pick up the dry ditch early and lead directly to the control. With hindsight, the control should have been hung just outside the ditch, due to the low visibility. Only significant rhodo bushes have been mapped throughout Minley, but perhaps the map needs further review round this area.
Yateley experienced very significant felling and thinning work in the month leading up to the event. The area round 169 became very churned up, made worse by the recent wet weather, changing a complex interesting leg with variable runnability into something of a slog. We were lucky that the thinning did not affect courses more than it did. 166 had to be moved from a thicket further NW due to thinning, the area N of 166 was felled during this period, significantly affecting the long leg on Black and Brown NNE from 166 to 170. I hope these untimely interference did not detract too much from your enjoyment of the courses.
My thanks go to Charlie Turner for his invaluable help and advice throughout the planning, and to Eric Harper of BKO for his assistance and guidance.
Martin Wilson, BKO
