Derek Gale reflects on the White Rose (& a summary of DVO results)
I believe there is an old adage that the South Sea islanders could not see Captain Cook’s ship as it was so large, compared to their experience, that it could not exist. I start this tale this way as when I go out into the forest with my trusty orienteering map I expect to see what my map tells me.
So there I was at the White Rose running my Middle Distance Short Green. Control 1 having been punched, I decide to run along the track towards Control 2 which is very straight but runs into an out-of-bounds area. What I did not expect to find was 4 metre high netting hung on trees and poles across the path. At this point someone says ‘that must be the paint ball area’ so thinking I must have run into the out-of-bounds I veer south only to find yet more of the netting, and a crowd of fellow orienteers looking for the control. This netting in several places was down on the ground and looked quite old. So what was the problem? Well, we were all looking for a crag as that is what you get in a forested area. What you do not expect is an uncrossable wall, particularly a ruined uncrossable wall if such a thing exists, which does not enclose anything. Only when we were standing by the pit in the horseshoe did the light dawn that the netting was in the same shape as the crag on the map and that it was mapped as an uncrossable wall did we see Captain Cook’s ship. Finding the control was easy after that but the damage was done.
An explanation about the map. It is a combination of my Short Green and Jen’s Very Short Green which had different first control but the same second control. The wavy blue line is my GPS track to find the control.
So what should have happened. The map correctly placed the netting and it was uncrossable where it was still standing and I cannot see any sensible way of indicating its presence other than what was done. I am of the belief that the final details should have carried an alert to what might be found in the forest. Whether I would have remembered it is another matter. The path drifting into the out-of-bounds area also looks a bit odd, though as you can see from the track I never got close enough to see if there was a specific boundary.
In spite of this, Derek managed a creditable 2nd place in M80L in the combined results. Other DVO performances as follows:
Night Score
David Newton M45, 9th Male Vets
David Vincent M60, 9th Male Super Vets
Graham Johnson M70, 2nd Male Ultra Vets
Combined Middle and Classic races
M55L Andy Sykes 2nd
M65L Russell Buxton 7th
W60L Kim Buxton 5th
W65L Val Johnson 4th
W75L Jen Gale 2nd
The Forest Sprint on Bank Holiday Monday was well received, DVO’s highest placed runner being Judith Holt who was 8th, some 5 minutes down on her grand-daughter SYO’s Lucy Holt in first place. Josh Cooper, the Weekend Coordinator, said “The forest was runnable and had good visibility, with a 1:5000 map forcing quick decisions.” You can read his blog about the weekend here.
