White/Yellow starts

[King Penguin]

Given that most people esp. juniors on white / yellow will be complete novices, is it reasonable to expect them to know that the positioning of the control kite at decision points will/should point them in the right direction for the next leg ? It may be enshrined in rules and guidelines, but how many experienced orienteers read these, let alone newcomers who may well be experiencing the sport for the first time ?

[Marco Polo]

Given that most people esp. juniors on white / yellow will be complete novices, is it reasonable to expect them to know that the positioning of the control kite at decision points will/should point them in the right direction for the next leg ?

I wouldn't expect novice orienteers to know that. I'm sure they want to navigate as much as possible. I think that the principle works more as an unseen guide for those occassions when younger orienteers might run off without first looking at the map. If anyone assumed this was always the case, they could become badly unstuck with a poorly placed control.

[Snail]

listen to the advice on Nope eg recommending Barry Elkington's advice and you won't go wrong!

Agree that Barry's article in general is excellent. But there is one area critical to novice planners where I disagree with him, and that is the claim that "a typical White course will probably have 10-15 controls". In my experience - admittedly mainly in the south - the vast majority of White courses have only around 7-10 controls. (Would be interested to know if this is significantly different elsewhere.) Not saying that there aren't some complex areas where a few more are necessary, but if your 'natural' course only has around 8 controls you shouldn't feel you have to add more.

[Adventure Racer]

Question then is do you just put controls at decision points, or are you supposed to have more (at points where no decision is required)?

Just on a slightly different tangent, it's not possible to have a white course which is too easy, but is it possible to have a yellow course which is too easy (presumably if it's planned as a white course, but interested in a slightly more involved answer!)?

[DJM]

Graeme wrote:

With the start on a path/ride junction. Recognising that what is important is how it looks on the ground, not what some guideline says ...

Looks to me from the RG map as if the start triangle at Elibank was centred a few metres SW of the intersection and not at it, but that doesn't guarantee that the flag was there too ... I agree that you have to see what it looks like on the ground and it might well be that the path was much more obvious than the ride, in which case there's little problem.

But please don't disparage the Appendix (not Guideline!). If we want to encourage good practice, then these things have to be written down somewhere and BOF Rules (and their Appendices as well as the Guidelines) are the obvious place to do this.

Snail wrote:

Agree that Barry's article in general is excellent. But there is one area critical to novice planners where I disagree with him, and that is the claim that "a typical White course will probably have 10-15 controls". In my experience - admittedly mainly in the south - the vast majority of White courses have only around 7-10 controls

Simple arithmetic shows that Barry should be correct (he usually is!). Take these two BOF recommendations:

White courses should be 1.0 - 1.9 km in length
Maximum length between TD 1 controls should be 200 m

If you take an average White course length of 1.5 km, an average control separation of 100 m will need 15 controls on the course, whilst an average separation of 150 m requires 10 controls. NB since the maximum separation should be 200 m, it is likely that the average is going to be somwehat less.

[RJ]

And doesn't it make so much good sense, with that density of control circles on the map, to have a different scale. How silly is 1:10000 for the White course! Is it not time we insisted on 1:5000 for the map scale, so that there is something to read, and not just a clutter of red circles.

[Snail]

I can do the maths as well - all I am saying is that I don't think that's what happens in practice!

Having re-looked at descriptions and results available on the web, I have so far only found one white course, out of about 25, with more than 10 controls - and that includes some up to 1.9km in length. So clearly those guidelines are frequently being stretched. In some cases the "maximum of 200m" guidance must be being broken (eg controls on junctions 250m apart don't have a third added between them, and if 500m apart just have one inserted rather than two).

But in admitting to having done this as both planner and controller I have never had any complaints. Hence I am interested in whether other parts of the country are different. Can anyone say that their local White courses regularly have more than 10 controls?

[greywolf]

Hence I am interested in whether other parts of the country are different. Can anyone say that their local White courses regularly have more than 10 controls?

looked at a few recent events up here and haven't seen any white courses with more than 10 controls. a few legs in the 300 - 400m range mind...

[GML]

Just
on a slightly different tangent, it's not possible to have a white
course which is too easy, but is it possible to have a yellow course
which is too easy (presumably if it's planned as a white course, but
interested in a slightly more involved answer!)?

It certainly is possible to have a Yellow course that is too easy - one that is really no more than a long White. One recommendation that I would make to planners of Yellow courses is to try to not put Yellow course controls on path junctions (completely the opposite of White course controls). Also remember that Yellow course legs need to follow linear features, but they don't have to be paths or tracks - if at all possible try to use other types of linear feature such as fences, very distinct vegetation boundaries (such as between forest and open), or streams. Whilst Yellow course controls are allowed to be on a feature a little way off the linear feature that the competitors are running along (provided that the kite is clearly visible from the linear feature) I don't actually think that this adds very much to a Yellow course in practice, and so wouldn't suggest trying to hard too achieve this (but if there is an obvious feature nearby then by all means use it). And of course, as with any course, what makes a Yellow course a good course is when every leg (or nearly every leg) appropriately challenges the competitor; so one or two legs that are really no harder than on a White course is OK, but as far as possible all of the rest should involve the competitor in making one or two changes of direction at decision points that are not marked by controls (including not marked by White course controls that just don't happen to be on the Yellow course). One final thing, please don't forget that most competitors on the Yellow course are not very big, and so when you do take them off path, please make sure that the route is physically runnable for someone with short legs!

[Roger]

Several times, when coaching, planning and controlling, I've seen the 'helpful' placing of white-course flags a little way down the correct path from a junction cause difficulties. Child gets to junction, sees flag a couple of metres down the correct path, punches it and returns to the junction (sometimes to an accompanying parent, but not always). These children know that they need to make a decision at the junction on which way to go, but end up at the junction facing exactly the wrong way.

So given compliant ground, I now try to ensure that these white-course controls can be punched from the junction itself, if possible with the punch and flag placed on the correct path out but no more than half a metre down it.

There's no substitute for observing what really goes on, as I know both Graeme and Barry have. But their children, like my own, realised quite early on that the control leads the way out -- perhaps following parental guidance. Has anyone else seen the 'reversal' behaviour described above?

A white course is like a tightrope. You've got to keep the competitors on the correct route, because once they're off it they have fallen and there's no way back -- at that stage in development, they just do not have the skills needed to relocate and get back to the course. Anything that helps to keep them on the tightrope is worth doing.