Acknowledgements
NATO would like to acknowledge the help of the following individuals and organisations:
Ian Robinson - Scottish Woodlands (Alnwick Office)
Mark Cuddigan - Ford and Etal Estates
James Boulton - Smiths Gore (Middleton Estates Office)
Northumbrian Army Cadet Force
Members of CLOK and NN
Officials
Controllers: John Biggar (LINOC) National Event, Rob McKenna (NN) Relay & Short Race.Weekend Organiser
After Organising BOC 2004 I spent all my time praying for sunshine - certainly worked but forgot to ban the wind. Various highlights: the fantastic views (Holy Island, the Farne Islands, Bamburgh Castle and the Cheviots) especially at sunrise on Sunday to the accompaniment of curlews and various geese, the diversity of the competitors and the enthusiasm of everyone (including the helpers). Certainly the willingness of individuals from across the Region to offer their services made my life easier. My thanks to them all and also to all the competitors for making the effort to come to North Northumberland.
Planner: (Saturday)
Cockenheugh is a new area for orienteers, and it was intended to get as many competitors as possible to run through the array of sandstone rock features including 80' high rock pinnacles, towering crags and St Cuthbert's Cave. Primary concern was for safety whilst providing challenging runs. This inevitably meant contouring along the base of the crag line as descent / climb through wet bracken could have been treacherous. At the southern extent of the Long and Medium courses control (43) on a 2 m boulder was used to turn competitors north. In bringing in controls after the event, I could see that competitors had generally chosen to run directly from their previous control following a vegetation change which drifted east to this control. A rock outcrop not detailed on the map, caused some confusion as runners tried to relocate. In my planning runs I approached the control by running parallel to the ride to the south, until seeing a mapped crag and then contoured in to the control. This difference in approach turning a fairly large feature from a sideways perspective into a small target when being run at speed from above.
Greensheen hill provides a crag line on its western flank with a multitude of rock features, whilst its eastern slope is only notable for its knee deep heather. Course planning was concentrated on the rock features with an option to utilise the path back along the ridge as a longer but more runnable route choice.
This was the first year of a new format for the VHI relays with the introduction of over 35's and the increase of the 4 Home Nations teams from 4 to 6. In the mass start each Nation had 2 runners on each of the Long, Medium and Short Courses. To prevent collusion between team mates the courses were gaffled giving 6 different maps, the only proviso being that each team had to run a short course as the last leg so that there would be head to head racing.
The relay winning time was 138 mins (expected winning time in the VHI guidelines of 135 mins), with 10 teams in a race to the line, finishing within a span of 100 secs. A mini mass start was held for the 2 outstanding teams shortly after 1.00.
The Short Race courses compared to other venues were particularly well supported with over 170 pre-entries. The Long and Medium courses utilised the same maps as for the relays and would have benefited from the Elephant tracks leading into the controls. The fastest time on the Long course being run at 6 mins / k making a mockery of my concerns that the area was going to prove too physical for "Veterans".
Those who thought it was cold on Saturday may not be surprised to know that there was a snow covering on those hills today.(Wednesday 16th)
Chris Bradford
Planner: (Sunday)
1710 hrs on a Sunday evening and all the controls are in from the forest. Thanks to helpers Roger Lott (TVOC), Rob McKenna (NN) and Controller John Biggar for their efforts, as well as my Silva headtorch for the last 30 minutes. From a planners point of view everything went really well - no serious disputes about control sites, maps correctly overprinted, 100% reliability of SI boxes and winning time on the M21 just a couple of minutes off the planned time.
Thank you for so much positive feedback about the course planning. With the exception of the technically easier courses I put you all through a similar start, middle and end. The "middle" on the longer courses was stretched out to the west of the area in varying degrees. During planning I identified all the most runnable (really) and interesting areas, and tried to plan courses around these. I avoided a straightforward clockwise or anticlockwise circuit of the area, opting for lots of changes in direction, varying leg lengths and a number of cross-overs. With no control more than about 150 metres from a significant path I tried my best to take the technical difficulty up to maximum and think I succeeded. It was very easy to start navigating in the wrong direction after losing contact with the map.
There were a few negative comments about the physical nature of the area, especially the brashings. Some competitors did actually relish this saying this was proper orienteering and Nationals should be tough! It's even worse being a planner believe me - I had something like 20 trips to the forest (along with 36 hours course planning on the computer excluding Dave Caudwell's OCAD time). Apologies to those who found it difficult crawling back out of the ditch near the end - the alternative was jumping one further along. Kyloe has some terrific crags, and just for the scenic value I took a few routes along to Kyloe in the Woods (climbers I spoke to there commented on the fashion statements made by some of the orienteers they saw). Unfortunately one VHI competitor pitched over a crag, fortunately not these ones or it would have been terminal.
With a long walk to and from the assembly area thank goodness NATO finally had some fine weather. Thank you to my map bagging team (wife Ro, Adrian and Anna Barnes, Sheila Sprot and Kath Dixon) and I hope there wasn't too much air trapped inside yours. Controller John Biggar was a terrific help, making only minor changes but forcing a slight rethink in July when some of the control sites could not be reached due to head-high bracken. Alan Heppenstall as mapper had to tackle almost the impossible in terms of mapping vegetation boundaries but the paths and contours didn't move too much. Dave Caudwell put in a lot of effort taking my courses planned in WINCACS into the OCAD environment, picking up minor points that John and I never spotted.
Finally thanks to the Welsh VHI squad for the chocolate waffles in appreciation of the pain and suffering I put them through.
Colin Matheson