Navigate to finish?

[Forest Gump]

What about navigate at the start kite...??

Apparently (and I never knew this) BOF rule......

3.4 The Start
3.4.1 The position of the centre of the start triangle shown on the map shall be on a mapped feature and identified on the ground by a control banner. For TD1 and 2 courses this feature will need to be a path or similar feature; also it shall not be at a junction or intersection, as this would require the beginners to decide which way to go without knowing where they have just come from.

Not that it caused us any issues on the white course yesterday but the kite was on a junction of 3 separate paths.......How many times is the start kite on a path junction and/or has no description on the control descriptions???...in my experience lots!!

[Gnitworp]

Shove the kite a few metres up the path White and Yellow have to use, and watch that they go up it.

[LesS]

The reason that people missed the last control at the SOL is that it overlaps the double-ring Finish circle on the direct line from the previous control (on Short Green at least). The 'heavier' printing of the Finish circle attracts the eye and you don't see the abbreviated circle for the last control. I was fortunate that I'd spotted the control number earlier as I was refolding the map and reminded myself that there was an 'extra' control at the finish or I would have missed it too. The control number is also against the finish circle and not the last control.

I'd made this mistake a few months ago at a Lake District event where the last control circle was adjacent to the finish circle and the finish area was surrounded by out-of-bounds hatching and, to me, the last control just got lost in the red blur.

[Gnitworp]

If run ins are very clearly taped, you can have very short ones, and mismark the finish, well clear of the last control circle.

[Paul Frost]

The reason that people missed the last control at the SOL is that it overlaps the double-ring Finish circle on the direct line from the previous control (on Short Green at least).

Now having seen a printed map I can see how close they are. The problem isn't obvious with the RouteGadget because way too high a resolution map has been uploaded, and this makes the control circles tiny (a lesson for anyone uploading RouteGadgets, bigger isn't better).

Slightly puzzled as to why a control was placed so close to the finish, what purpose did it serve?

[SteveE]

Slightly puzzled as to why a control was placed so close to the finish, what purpose did it serve?

because this was covered in an earlier reply, it's in the rules .......

The rule book says..

[i]3.5.1
It is important to ensure that the Finish is easily located. "Navigate to Finish" should
not be used except (sometimes) for score events where the Finish will normally be next to the start. In other cases, there should be an ordinary last control (with description) and then a taped route, which can be just a few metres, to the Finish.

[Paul Frost]

I suspect that rule was not intended to ensure that all last controls were only a few metres away.
If it is on the approach line it may be acceptable, but it strikes me that by being off line and with overlapping circles you are just asking for trouble (as the number who missed it shows). If it was on the path and you fell over it on the way, fine, or further away off line, fine.
Or did they not have enough tape?

But perhaps more importantly, it doesn't give much for the fastest run-in competition.

[DJM]

which can be just a few metres

I think I'm probably responsible for writing these words and I apologise for their lack of precision! It never struck me that they could be interpreted the gnitworp way - it seemed obvious that the separation should be such that circles don't overlap, i.e. > 30m on a 1:10000 map with standard 6mm diameter circles.

[mappingmum]

ahem! Control descriptions, anyone?
Orienteering: it's about using all the information provided to complete the course.
Suspect people may have missed it because it was one of those controls you had to look behind you at the opportune moment. I always thought that was good planning.

[Clive Coles]

Surely, to place the club in the position of having to disqualify finishers for failng to notice the final control, is not something we should encourage our planners to do.

The aim of planning is to set a fair course, not catch people out over a technicality. . Fair enough that the courses provide a navigational challenge that rewards those who can interpret the map and provide route choice where the TD is appropriate. That's good planning. But...it is not "good practice" what ever the rules can be construed to mean, for the finish ( or the start for that matter) to be confusing.

I agree with DJM ~ the circles should not overlap.

[NeilC]

If run ins are very clearly taped, you can have very short ones, and mismark the finish, well clear of the last control circle.

I recall the WMOC in Portugal (I think the sprint heats) when the final control was quite close to the finish gantry, and the finish control. Quite a few people stopped at the last control believing that it was the finish.

[King Penguin]

The rule book says..

[i]3.5.1
It is important to ensure that the Finish is easily located. "Navigate to Finish" should
not be used except (sometimes) for score events where the Finish will normally be next to the start. In other cases, there should be an ordinary last control (with description) and then a taped route, which can be just a few metres, to the Finish.

I have never understood the reasoning for this. Effectively it make the run-in not orienteering but a sprint. "Orienteering" therefore effectively ends at the last control, which from a true orienteering perspective (not the competition) is effectively the "finish". Apply the same logic to that point and you end up working back through the courses leg by leg until there is no orienteering !

I cannot understand why different courses should not be allowed to have different final controls and different run-ins. If the route from final control to finish is narrow / rough this reduces the risk of the young or old being mown down by the elites, or final results being determined by whether or not someone is held up on the run-in. It also reduces bunching and punch contention at the final control.
It is fair and right for major events with a stadium-type finish to have a common run-in, for spectator and commentary benefit, but these run-ins should be clear and wide enough to cater for the expected numbers. For a small event with a remote finish in the forest, why does there have to be a single taped run-in ? I accept angles of approach should be similar; we don't want head-on collisions from completely opposite directions at the finish punches. If a competitor can successfully navigate 10 - 20 legs around their course why can they suddenly not navigate to the finish ?

[Gnitworp]

I've got myself in a bit of a pickle here. I had no choice but to cut my 40 m run in (1:5000 scale)to 8m metres to avoid a new (post-map-printing) football pitch forcing me to cut the run in (a narrow runnable corridor through dense forest and out into the open - now a football pitch with its touchline 1.5m from the forest edge)to a point in the forest short of the touchline (max possible 8m)
Nobody missed it or had any trouble with where to go to get both control and finish, so it did work like a dream, so much so that it went to my head! I do indeed advocate short run ins, but agree with DJM that the Finish should be far enough away to be marked accurately on the map, as 100% of my previous finishes have been. I retract my previous post.

[DJM]

I recall the WMOC in Portugal (I think the sprint heats) when the final control was quite close to the finish gantry, and the finish control. Quite a few people stopped at the last control believing that it was the finish

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WMOC Sprint.gif (7.37 KiB) Viewed 7715 times

These are the two run-ins from Portugal. There are no overlapping circles and so no real excuses for stopping at 200 ... other than oxygen debt, that is!

[Muddy Boots]

One of the reasons why navigate to the finish is not acceptable is because the finish location is not described on the course description sheet. Last year I ran at least two courses where the navigate to finish was 400 metres long.