Langdon Hills is quite a challenging area to plan courses on, with the various woods linked together by some fast runs through open areas. Anthony's courses sought to avoid all the densest areas of brambles and judging by the comments afterwards, tested you with several route choice options on the longer courses. Indeed, on two legs I heard of at least three approaches taken with varying distance, height gained and terrain to negotiate.
Those copying down the courses at the time of the slight drizzle would have been disadvantaged as the master map covers were not able to be put up before the drizzle stopped. With a dry day being forecast this was an unwelcome surprise.
My apologies to those of you on the yellow course where control 114, which should have been the gate out of Coombe Wood, appeared on the control description sheet as control 116, the south side of the pond, which you should have reached ahead of control 114. Anyone who punched either 114 or 116 was adjudged to have visited the control; several of you took no chance and punched both of them and this was fine too. Also, on the orange course, an additional control immediately prior to the finish was on the master maps but not on the control description sheet, nor indeed intended to be on the course. Again it was on a direct line between the previous control and the finish.
I hope that your enjoyment of the event was not too diminished as a result of the above. I thought Anthony did an excellent job with his first foray into planning and the several other members of the HAVOC team coped well with the organisation of the event and with a smooth operation of the SportIdent equipment.
Andrew Evans
DFOK
I hope everyone enjoyed the courses today. I must apologise to Orange competitors who had an extra control on their maps; fortunately this was on the sensible route to the finish and should not have cost anyone time in punching it. Also I made a worse error on the Yellow course where I changed a control but neglected to change the control description sheet. It appears that most competitors punched at both to be sure and we have checked the results to ensure anyone who punched at the 'wrong' control will be reinstated. I hope these errors did not mar your enjoyment of the day.
I tried to avoid the majority of the brambles, and judging from some comments at the download some people agreed (although others didn't). I was a little restricted in using the entire area as I was requested to avoid areas of bluebells in the main part of the park, and an area where there are badger setts.
Originally I planned to have start and finish in Westley Heights so that the White and Yellow courses would not have to cross a road at all. I could not locate two suitable road crossing points without courses running through the car-park, and so after discussion with Andrew and a survey of the crossing point used we agreed to have all the courses cross the road with a manned crossing once.
Thank you to Andrew for being such a helpful and considerate controller, to Chris Shaw for advice during the planning stages and in putting out and collecting controls. And to Graham and all the other members of HAVOC who helped us out on the day.
Anthony Waller