Course Planning

[PhilJ]

Not having planned for a while I am doing our club champs soon so thought I'd best refresh myself with the current rules/guidelines.

Came across this rule in the Course Planning rules:
3.1.12 The site of each control shall be shown as the centre of a circle of 6mm diameter.

Not sure if this is new and have seen some discussion of this on nope and compassport, if its not new I have been doing it wrong for years. e.g where there is a very large thicket, pond/lake etc something that is of considerable size I have always put the centre of the circle at the position the kite will be at. So if there is a large thicket and the control will be on the North side I put the centre of the circle on the North side (and control desc the same). So for example if you have a large lake are you supposed to put the centre of the circle in the middle of the lake and your control desc will say west side/edge. On the Yellow course I have planned there is a very large marsh just off a path and I am looking to use the edge of it, to put the centre of the circle in the middle of this marsh would look daft/may tempt a younster to wade into the marsh looking for the flag if they miss it from the path.....
Oops thats got me onto another thing edge v side, I have read the IOF guidelines on the use of edge/side but I have seen cases of planners using thicket west side and thicket west edge, I use edge (probably wrong) as I see a side as something that has a side, like a boulder, whereas a marsh/clearing/thicket does not have a side but they do have edges, am I wrong?

[Marco Polo]

Phil,
It sounds as if you have it correct.

For point features the circle should centre on the feature, but for larger features such as marshes or large thickets, centering on actual site withing the feature is correct.

[Marco Polo]

but my reading of section 3.1.12 is that is describes what you have been doing anyway?

[greywolf]

Came across this rule in the Course Planning rules:
3.1.12 The site of each control shall be shown as the centre of a circle of 6mm diameter.

Not sure why you couldn't see/quote the full guidance, which is fairly straightforward: if it's a point feature (not to scale) centre the control circle over the centre of the feature, if the feature is drawn to scale then centre the circle where the control will be

3.1.12 The site of each control shall be shown as the centre of a circle of 6mm
diameter. The circle should be broken to avoid obscuring important detail. If the
control feature is shown on the map symbolically rather than to scale, the circle
should be drawn so that the symbol lies exactly at the centre. For example,
if you use the east side of a dot knoll as a control site then the circle should be drawn around the middle of the symbol, not the east side of it. However, a feature such as a knoll shown by a ring contour (i.e. hill) is drawn to scale and the centre of the circle shall be drawn where the control site is (e.g. N side) rather than at the centre of the ring contour.

[AndyC]

I just work on the basis of being objectively clear- the circle is as near as possible centred on the actual control site -if it is a point feature centring the circle on the feature puts the centre as near as possible to the control site anyway. And the description is what makes it easiest for the competitor to locate the control site.
On my first event as planner I used the text description "inlet" and was taken to task because that is not an approved description - my defence was that a competitor who had missed marking that control on his map (that long ago) found the control by the description alone - it was therefore objectively clear (btb I can draw a symbol for inlet it's a "wet re-entrant" in most cases)

[SteveE]

Regarding the edge/side description:

the easiest way to remember is that 'side' is used when a control feature is above surface level and 'edge' is used for features below or at surface level.

Extract of IOF Control Descriptions 2004:
Column G.
11.1 'side' - used where the control feature extends above the surface of the ground eg Boulder, north east side; Ruin, west side

11.2 'edge' - used where:
a) The feature extends down from the surface of the surrounding ground and the control is situated at ground level; Depression, south east edge

b) The feature extends over a significant area and the control is situated on the border of that area; eg Marsh, west edge; Clearing, north west edge

[PhilJ]

Thank you Steve, that explains the differences clearly.