Results and Split Times
Control 242 has been removed from your overall finishing time – see the Controller’s comments below.
WinSplits
RouteGadget
Photos

Scroll down for a full set of comments from all the event’s Officials.

Organiser’s Comments

Diary of the organiser

6.00am     Alarm goes off
6.20am     On the way
6.55am     Drop Paul off so he can begin to hang flags
7.05am     Park in the carpark
7.10am     Out onto the heath to hang controls – clear blue sky and the sun is shining
8.00am     Back to the car meet Paul
8.05am     Back out to do the taped route and put out more controls – sun is still out!
9.00am     Back to the car, unload the car – still blue sky
9.30am     First cars arrive – clouds begin to roll in
9.35am     Tents up, start and finish up – more clouds
10.00am   Registration open, cars rolling in – first drop of rain
10.15am   First starts – few more rain drops – more cars!
10.40am   It’s RAINING
11.15am   It’s still raining, carpark is FULL!
12.30pm   Lunch – it’s now pouring
2.15pm     All finished – rain is clearing, a few bright spells
2.30pm     Out collecting controls – few spots of rain
3.15pm     All packed up, soggy tents & controls, muddy car! – few blue patches in the sky and the odd burst of sun
3.30pm     On the way home – SUNSHINE!

Wow! Many thanks to you all turning up on such a dreadful day.
And a special welcome to all the newcomers, I hope you enjoyed your first taste of orienteering.
The event went smoothly and I can’t believe how many of you turned up, we nearly ran out of car parking space.
Hopefully you all enjoyed the event, I had many favourable comments.

Many thanks to all the fantastic helpers today.

Now just the drying and cleaning to do but that’s for another day.

Karen Goldsworthy.

Planner’s Comments

First of all, thanks for everyone who turned out in what was pretty miserable weather, it really helps make the effort of putting on an event so much more worthwhile when you get plenty of people taking part.

I hope everyone enjoyed their courses. Unfortunately (or possibly luckily) I was not around much to hear people’s comments as I had an extended stint on what was a challenging carpark duty, mainly due to the number of cars to be fitted into a relatively small area. The only thing that stands out to me in the results is the number of people who did not complete the short green. Although the reasons seem very varied, if there is anything specific please do not hesitate to let me know so that I can bear it in mind when planning in future.

Holt Country Park & Lowes does offer quite a varied range of terrain for what is quite a small area. From fairly standard conifer plantation, to open heathland, to areas of runnable woodland, and with some contours and the odd marsh thrown in for good measure, there is quite a lot for a planner to play with. Nevertheless, the area is constantly evolving, so just when you find some areas becoming useable again after a period of time (the southern area in particular is clearing up nicely), then other areas such as the heath become less useable. Probably the biggest problem I had was how best to use the heath. With what must be some of the most vicious gorse known to man covering significant areas of the heath, I tried to construct legs that either avoided the worst patches, or at least had viable access points to the control sites. I also tried to avoid the risk of competitors thrashing around in painful gorse looking for ‘well-hidden’ pits etc. by at least placing those controls on or near visible features such as significant trees. Judging by how my lower legs looked rather like a pincushion when I got in the bath on Sunday night I can’t say how successful I was in this regard!

Apart from a few late adjustments necessary following storm Doris, all the planning went fairly smoothly and I would like to thank Kim & Tim for their help and advice as controllers, and also to Karen who not only did the job of organiser but also acted as assistant planner by helping tag sites, putting controls out and doing most of the OCAD work. I would also like to thank all the helpers on the day, particularly everyone who helped collect the controls in after what involved hanging around in the cold and wet for some time before the final competitors finished.

And finally, on behalf of myself and all competitors, I would like to thank the Dartmoor Ponies on the heath because despite them seemingly wanting to hunt me down en-masse when I was both putting the controls out and collecting them in, and despite their refusal to move when they were blocking my only route through the gorse, the fact is without their grazing and making numerous tracks (however small and narrow they were) through that gorse, I think that the courses would have been dramatically reduced in scope and the pain to our legs would have been dramatically increased!

Paul Goldsworthy.

Controller’s Comments

Firstly a big thank you to all the competitors and helpers for turning up on what must be one of the wettest and most miserable days so far this year. Also a big thank you to Karen for organising in her usual and highly efficient manner.

Paul planned some very good courses given the limitations of the gorse areas on the Lowes area and from what I heard most people enjoyed the courses despite the prickly gorse effecting a lot of the direct navigational routes.

Unfortunately a problem with control #242 was brought to my attention about half way through the event. The control site on the map was a pit situated within what looked like a small hill but was in fact a circular earth bank. The control had been placed in a pit on a small knoll, which looked identical to what I expected to see and was assumed as being correct. However this feature was not shown on the map (although it will be added to the map update now). The site was checked by 3 experienced orienteers but no one queried the position. After a few competitors complained, I went out and checked the control and it was quickly evident by taking a bearing from the finish flag and another mapped pit, that the control was in the wrong position.

My sincere apologies to competitors on the Short Green, Green, Blue and Brown course who lost time searching for the control flag, which unfortunately was the last control on their courses. In particular apologies to the lady from SROC who I was unable to inform on the day, that she was correct! In order to establish a fair result for the four courses affected I have asked for the course times to be amended by removing the time for the leg prior to control #242 from each competitor’s results. The final results will show a shorter time than the download printed results.

Once again thank you for all turning out and I hope you enjoyed the event and found the courses challenging.

Tim Eden.