| Organiser’s
Comments Orienteering
is a solitary vice so orienteering relay events,
apart from the JK and BOC, tend to be rather
complicated. Unfortunately a lot of teams did not
grasp the format. As well as being on a large
notice, this was described in great detail on the
entry form which has been around for a couple of
months. The winners were a two man team and a
foreign team who just popped in to see us on
their holiday. They grasped the format in
a foreign language. Both teams were
really good at orienteering as well as being able
to understand the format. You know what
they say - if in doubt read the instructions.
While the format, invented
by Nigel Bateman for last year’s relays,
seems viable and is more flexible than the old
format, in which 5 people run 4 maps three times
each. I have a few ideas for improving the
procedures to prevent maps being run in the wrong
order and the SportIdent system being misused. I
saw one runner take a map from an incoming runner
and place his dibber in the ‘clear’ box,
before departing for the map’s second run,
thereby wiping out the record of the previous
runner. The ‘clear’ and
‘start’ boxes were there for individual
runners, otherwise I would have removed them
after the relay event started. All this was
explained in the instructions on the outside of
the envelopes.
We hope to see you all
again next year when we might have sorted out
some of these problems!
Roger
Green
Planner's Comments
Having decided late in the
day that Bullers Hill and Harcombe were both
ruled out due to extensive felling , we were just
able to fit Haytor in. The ‘land
permission’ arrived 3 days before the event.
I had second guessed where the ground nesting
birds would be so all the courses stood, which
was good news as Roger had already printed and
bagged them.
Planning was fun. I went out
on the area in heavy clag, and got lost, but
found most of Green control sites, ordinary clag
where I could see more than 20mtrs, and really
quite nice clag, when I just got wet. I was also
on the area doing last minute tweaks when the
controller was visiting control sites. I
hadn’t realised that testing hardness of
granite with your head was part of
controller’s duties. We decided to change
that site, after all the blood may have
distracted some.
I basically planned 4
courses each with 8 controls and then stripped
some sites out. I tried to avoid the deeper
runnability and also the random rock screen. I
thought I had managed to utilise the best of the
runnable areas, but some of your route choices
confounded me.
I was ready to tape Yellow
if it clagged on the day, but allow for a good
warm up leg for big boys leading the competitive
teams off.
Green was meant to be
technical and physical, and I was gratified by
the 50:50 split on attacks to the first leg.
Light Green was to be less
technical, with more running, but seemed to cause
most problems, particularly control 54. Most
popular route seemed to go left and use the
bigger paths then drop onto the kite from control
64, using the gullys. I had expected more people
would have attacked from below going north of the
prominent ridge of old spoil and dropping into
the gulley system of the old railway. At the
gully junction below the re-entrant/old quarry is
a set of granite railway points.
Orange was set up with hand
rails to every control but with options to cut
corners. All the course was visible from the Tor,
for spectator purposes. Nobody took up the option
of another jog up the Tor after their last run in
order to cheer on their team mates.
I was gratified to see so
many finishers having given their all and how
close the contests were at the close.
The map probably needs to be
updated. Paths and strips of more runnable
terrain would be beneficial. Maybe a reappraisal
of terrain screens would be appropriate. However
on the whole I think the map has worn very well.
The area was physical but with the chance to get
some fast legs and also to test technique.
Alan was a very helpful
controller and I think we worked well together.
Thanks also to John Dyson, Ella Bowles , Adrian
and Helen Taylor for collecting controls, and
particularly to Jack Baker who ran his
Light Green course collecting controls as he went.
Wilf
Taylor
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