Master Maps

[madmike]

Remember the good old days of copying your course down from the master maps?

It's been a while since I copied a master map and was wondering if there are any clubs still using them at Level C/D events - or have master maps been consigned to the dustbin of history now?

[NFKleanne]

They used on at an RAF event in Suffolk I went to about two months after I started orienteering. Must have been January 2008 - I think!
I enjoy them - wish we had more.

[AlanB]

Yes, we have local events (D) at Tayside. I've also been to some of Forth Valley's Wednesday Evening Events where the old system is used - you can even use punch cards if you wish!

[Gnitworp]

Those were the days, even the earliest British Champs had master maps.

To gain time and efficiency your map doctoring strategies incuded:

Trimming your map to make it easier to handle.

Using matt transparent adhesive plastic film (Transpaseal) on both sides of the map and sandpapering it so the course marked on with a chinagraph pencil didn't get rubbed off (no time for struggling with putting a map into a mapcase in a high wind). You used different coloured pencils at second and third master maps (I used red, green and blue). Alternatively your could buy 2 maps and Transpaseal them together back-to-back.

Emphasising Magnetic North Lines

Adding North arrows to top, bottom and sides.

Occasionally even shading high ground.

I used Verithin Coloured penils to ensure that map corrections were done in the right colour.

It was a sport in itself.

[EddieH]

And with 2nd master maps could be a lottery. I remember a controller deciding that the M21L times were too poor to award gold standard. He ignored the fact that the second master maps were in a pool of water, the rain was lashing down and there was no cover. It was impossible to mark parts of the map that had blobs of water on them so in places lines went in the general direction of a control where there was then, if lucky, a piece of sodden map, or more likely a hole. Then you had to guess where the control might be.

Ah those were the days

[AndyC]

I was faced with amaster map at a droobers event maybe three years ago. I was so rusty with my technique that the linking line I drew between controls completely obscured a key feature on the map (a boardwalk across a marsh) -fortunately when I arrived at the spot my guesswork was correct.

[andypat]

The first time I did the LAMM - the Monarch of the glen one at Ardverikie. - you had to mark on your controls using a list of grid references which added an unexpected element of uncertainty to the challenge if you werent sure of your Northings and Eastings!

[andypat]

The first time I did the LAMM - the Monarch of the glen one at Ardverikie. - you had to mark on your controls using a list of grid references which added an unexpected element of uncertainty to the challenge if you werent sure of your Northings and Eastings!

[Electrocuted]

I remember having a fight with my other half during the LAMM. We had marked up our maps separately. I said the control was further north. He disagreed. When we compared maps his control was marked much further south than mine. I couldn't work out why this was until he admitted he had used a 1:50,000 rule on his compass to mark the grid reference on a 1:40,000 map.

FVO still have master maps for most of their local events. You draw your map before you start thankfully.

[Scott]

I think the LAMM has moved to overprinted maps at some point in the last couple of years, but the Saunders still requires you to plot the controls from grid references. It's all part of the fun

[Glucosamine]

The usual Midland Trailquest (Cycle-O) approach of a premarked score-format map with the actual scores only being issued at the start is fun. Lots of speculation before the start, then a premium on getting the markup right. Suffering penalties to get to a 40-pointer, only to find it was a 10-pointer provides an effective lesson.

[madmike]

I think the LAMM has moved to overprinted maps at some point in the last couple of years, but the Saunders still requires you to plot the controls from grid references. It's all part of the fun

At LAMM you get a map with all the circles over printed and the clue sheet with Grids to identify your course - not true overprinting or simple grids but a mixture.

[Big Jon]

Master maps = stone age, get up to date and use a printer - for training an ink jet or home laser printer is fine, for anything bigger get it done commercially. we need to sell orienteering as a sport that is properly organised and presented, not as a draw your own map 1970's throwback.

[AndyC]

Troll mode???
Master maps are more environmentally friendly.
Rather than printing excess maps specific to a course -which are wasted if not enough people appear for that course- you print blank maps (able to be used for another event if too many prepared) and only the right number are issued and customised for each course by the competitors.



Sustainability gone mad??????????

[DeerTick]

Ah those were the days

Thankfully , those were the days. Transpaseal, chinagraph, sandpaper, polythene master map covers on wobbly sticks, disintegrating control cards, loos - don't even go there (literally), ... etc. Probably a significant contribution to my drift away from orienteering in the early eighties.

Master maps = stone age, get up to date and use a printer - for training an ink jet or home laser printer is fine, for anything bigger get it done commercially. we need to sell orienteering as a sport that is properly organised and presented, not as a draw your own map 1970's throwback.

Spot on, Jon. My first experience of "modern" orienteering four years ago, courtesy of a midweek, evening EckO event, gave me pre-marked, waterproof maps, SI units (wow!) and results online that night. Hooked!

Yes, let everyone know about the physical and mental side of orienteering, but let's also emphasise the technological side of our sport too.

AP