Navigate to Finish

[Gnitworp]

I have just checked the description sheets for all the 78 events I have done this year:
56 had 'Navigate to Finish'
22 had 'Follow tapes to Finish'
so it's going to require quite a sea change in common practice (and a lot of extra tape!)

Here's a suggestion for an additional OPTIONAL line on description sheets to pinpoint the marker'(s') location just like every other control.

Finish Options.JPG (6.16 KiB) Viewed 6001 times

[sborrill]

I have just checked the description sheets for all the 78 events I have done this year:
56 had 'Navigate to Finish'
22 had 'Follow tapes to Finish'
so it's going to require quite a sea change in common practice (and a lot of extra tape!)

And do you remember if there really were tapes to the finish at all of those 22 events? It seems a very high proportion.

Stephen

[Gnitworp]

No, I'm only going by the description sheets.
BTW, It is often possible to simplify a last control with tapes coming out of it by running back along the tapes.

[Len]

I've just downloaded the 2025 rules.

Why are they still draft when they take effect in 2 weeks? If I was planning an event in early 2025, I'd probably have already used the 2024 rules anyway, but should I use a "draft" set?

The document is horrible to read/fathom. The "change list" needs to be more of a commentary. Taking this particular issue as an example, section 27, page 29:

The first change, which the mark up shows as "deleted", I infer has simply moved from 27.1 to 27.2. Or was it there twice? It certainly hasn't been deleted. Confusing.

What has been added? Is it the rest of 27.2? I can't see anything that indicates what has been added or amended other than deletions. How is a prospective official meant to pick up on this and other changes? (other than the newsletter, which went into my spam folder!)

A.7.5. is equally hard work. What has actually changed in A7.5.4 and 7.5.5?

My suggestion is this mark up is dropped. Put anything different in red text until the following year.

[pete.owens]

I have just checked the description sheets for all the 78 events I have done this year:
56 had 'Navigate to Finish'
22 had 'Follow tapes to Finish'

And of those 22. How many actually had marked routes on the ground because that is what Condes does by default planner didn't realise the significance of the dashed lines?
And of the 56 how many had last controls that were the last control of the white course in sight of the finish so effectively had marked routes.
And is that more or less than the number of description sheets missing a description for the start.

We need to keep things simple and adopt a single standard way of finishing courses (an that now includes contactless punching) rather to add even more optional complexity. With the existing rules the finish is supposed to be unmissable so the degree of navigation involved should be trivial.

[pete.owens]

The revision I would make would be to enable the Finish to have a control description. If the Start has to have one - even when often on a line feature e.g. path for the benefit of TD1 and TD2 why can't the Finish also have one ?

The start needs a description because that is where the navigation starts - and "path" is not really a good description because that only fixes the location in one dimension.

In terms of the symmetry between the start and finish - the finish location is equivalent to the timed start location. Neither of them has a precise location and you would usually want to avoid mapped features in any case. Navigation is between the start triangle and the final control, so you need marked routes to get you from the timed start to the triangle and from the final control to the finish line.

Usually we can get away without any physical markings if we arrange for the start kite to be visible from the timed start and the finish from the last control. The trouble is that this is done so often that we forget that the process of running a course is:
Start
Pick up Map
Go to start triangle
Navigate to final control
Go to finish
If people get used to the start triangle and the timed start basically being the same place they get thrown when it is some distance to the kite. When I started orienteering it was quite a while before I realised that start kites were even a thing (and some planners still don't realise). Similarly you expect to run to the last control and not have to plan a route to the finish you can get thrown if a course requires full on navigation.

[DJM]

I've just downloaded the 2025 rules.
Why are they still draft when they take effect in 2 weeks? If I was planning an event in early 2025, I'd probably have already used the 2024 rules anyway, but should I use a "draft" set?

These are draft rules published so that several hundred pairs of eyes might be able to check them and spot errors/omissions/etc. Quite a few did so before yesterday's deadline, timed to be before tomorrow's Rules Group meeting after which the final version will be published.

And, of course, this won't have the track changes feature switched on any more, so will be much more easily readable to the average user - even more so, perhaps, thanks to the publication of the draft ...

[Len]

I couldn’t possibly have commented due to not understanding what has changed, for the reasons and examples described. Maybe I am alone in that, but I suspect not. Suspect those who have commented are folk who have the time to download the 2024 rules and compare/contrast?

Anyone coming to the final rules will have the same problem. How do they know what has changed? The change list doesn’t actually give the detail.

Appreciate there is a move to get the rules published earlier but they shouldn’t apply until say, 1st March if they aren’t final as of 16 Dec.

[Scott]

... with route choices including approaching the finish along paths from oposing directions.

I think it's probably simplest just to post a sample of the map and leave the reader to decide whether there was a meaningful risk of head-on collisions.

caw_finish.png (183.78 KiB) Viewed 5889 times

I'm not convinced that having people approach from a limited range of different directions is any more dangerous at the finish than any other control. The slower competitors may well reach maximum speed on the run in, but the fastest competitors - who presumably pose the greatest collision risk - will be travelling at a similar pace elsewhere on the course. If you're really concerned about high-speed finish collisions, the simple solution is just to reduce the approach velocity by putting the finish uphill of the last control.

I do agree that there needs to be a clear direction of exit from the finish to avoid people who have already finished getting in the way, and obviously setting courses that would lead to people approaching the finish at a 180° angle is not a great plan. But having people running through any control in opposite directions at high speed is just poor planning* - the finish isn't particularly special in that respect.

*not that that means that it doesn't happen - see the literal knock-out sprint at last year's EOC for an example of this mid-course

BTW, It is often possible to simplify a last control with tapes coming out of it by running back along the tapes.

I once 'followed tapes' to the last control on another course

I'd say that multiple taped routes from different last controls to a shared finish is fair game, with the proviso that different you should use a different coloured tape for each last control and ideally only bring the routes together once they're in sight of the finish, to mitigate the risk of anyone taking a wrong turn once they're genuinely on the run-in.

[SeanC]

I now expect the navigate to finish scenario and generally do a bit of light navigation and look up in the general direction of the finish for the finish flag, though at an event a few years ago I noticed some helpful tape a few tens of metres from the final control in the direction of the finish.

Excellent I thought, and ran hard towards the direction of the tape, across some low bracken... only to come to a shuddering halt as I ran straight into a zipwire set up for some outdoor ed stuff.

The tape was there to mark the hazard. I still have the dents in my quads.

[King Penguin]

Whilst I agree that ideally controls should not be approached from multiple different directions (not only for safety, but also for "giving the game away"), sometimes the constraints of the area make it difficult to avoid this in some instances. To my mind a far greater risk than 180 approaches in terrain is both ways round a blind corner in urbans.

[Scott]

Agreed - better, I think, to assess each control (and finish!) on its merits, rather than trying to be overly prescriptive.

[DJM]

To my mind a far greater risk than 180 approaches in terrain is both ways round a blind corner in urbans.

True. But whilst it is not easy to eliminate blind corners from urban terrain, it is much easier to eliminate 180 approaches to a Finish in terrain by having a common last control ...

Approaches to the last control will not be as frantic as to a Finish so 180 approaches there are safer.

[DJM]

The point where orienteering begins must be shown on the map with the start triangle and marked in the terrain by a control flag but no punching unit.

Although this is nowhere defined, it is understood that the corollary of the IOF rule above is that the last control is "the point where the orienteering ends" ... and not the Finish!

Bear in mind that it's not really possible to draw a run-in of any less than 75m without the overlapping circles making things difficult to read

Not sure I agree with this. The example below shows the end of the M35A course at WMOC 2022 (rated as one of the top ten courses of the year by World of O).



The left hand extract is of a draft version of the course and shows overlapping circles (but not difficult to read) whilst the right hand one is from the final version with circles cut to avoid obscuring detail and also to clarify the run-in (unfortunately partly obscured by someone's course drawn in).

All 2000+ competitors negotiated this with ease!

[IanD]

[Although this is nowhere defined, it is understood that the corollary of the IOF rule above is that the last control is "the point where the orienteering ends" ... and not the Finish!

Except at BAOC events, where the leg into the finish is often as navigationally challenging as any other - sometimes even harder since as already noted there is no control description