High fences

[EddieH]

I have found myself out of my depth in water twice while orienteering, once at a British Champs. Both were something of a shock but neither was illegal.

Oh, and these occasions are not the twice last year that I disappeared into an apparently bottomless marsh, also one of them the Britih Champs.

[AndyC]

I was highly tempted to swin across the lake at the OD event at Abbey Fields last night but I think the path round was still quicker

[DJM]

Not quite high fences, nor swimming, but embarrassing nevertheless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2l-cLdlBas

[Gross]

Looks like you did remarkably well there

[HOCOLITE]

David did you get any warning of that! I think I'd be standing waiting for someone else to go through before I'd even consider it. If I knew the depth and that the bottom was firm I'd contemplate it otherwise I'd be a wimp.

[Billy Whizz]

When people put their routes on Routegadget some do so without their competition map in front of them. The map on the screen does not show obligatory crossing points and so people who in fact obediently used said crossing point sometimes fail to remember this and make up the route they took, showing a route which crosses the 'high/uncrossable' fence they knew they crossed "to get to the other side".

Do not assume that people are all as diligent as you when marking their route on Routegadget. Some people don't show their mistakes, even! Their square just moves extremely slowly for that leg.

[JK]

There were people swimming last year at Swiss O week. There had been heavy rain and two lochans had merged into a figure of 8 shaped single one. Those taking that route choice started wading and then realised too late it was too deep.

Swimming is not a DQ offence unless the pre-race info says so (like it does for the Venice Street-O for instance).

I had one other comment on the excellent CompassSport article and that was that the mutliple Xs along a road says it is forbidden to run along the road; not that it is forbidden to cross it!

JK

[AndyC]

Swimming must be legal -you can do it in "Catching Features" (see Banter)

[RCB]

Scott wrote:
In fact, at normal events you can basically (attempt to) cross anything unless it ....., or would require you to swim.

There will be a deep moat surrounding a Fort at the British Sprint Champs (Age group) at HMS SULTAN, Gosport (13 June) .............. unfortunately it is definitely OOBs. Perhaps at a future Army event on this rarely used area there will be a swim option!!

[awk]

Admittedly I've not been on events recently where swimming is a planned route choice, but in the distant past.....

I once took a swimming route across a narrow bay of a lake, which saved me a couple of minutes in a club event. There was quite a well known instance back in the 70s/80s when Carol McNeill and partner (Ros Coates????) swam a lake in a Norwegian (?) Mountain Marathon to win.