Planner's comments

I hope you found the rather strange combination of "industrial archeology meets nature reserve of dunes and Marram grass" to be interesting terrain through which to orienteer.

When Caroline asked me to plan, I had no idea of the challenge that some of the constraints would present.  Rather naively, I agreed a finish area, and a start, and then started to plan draft courses.  It was only after adding all the different classes that it was clear that, in such a small band of dunes approaching the Finish, I would run out of features towards the end of each course.  As a consequence, it was tricky to find a safe walk to the Start – avoiding the danger of flying golf balls – while ensuring that competitors walking to the Start wouldn't be able to see the finishing controls!  This resulted in the walk to the Start being a little more challenging than expected, but hopefully it did not cause too many issues.

After some iteration, we arrived at what we hoped were fair controls.  Some of these were closer together than I would have liked, but I hope you can allow us a bit of leeway in this regard.

In his Controller's comments, Duncan has covered some issues on the day – including a shortage of one of the course maps and oversight in the placement of a control number on the Course 7 map (causing it to obscure an important feature in the terrain) – which are regrettable.

I would like to thank Duncan for his thoroughness, depth of knowledge and gracious guidance throughout many iterations of control placement and course planning.  The planning process also involved some re-mapping, mainly to improve map clarity and hopefully a more enjoyable run through so many intricate contour lines.  I'd like to thank Paul Taylor for handling all the map refinements and the final preparation of the course maps.

Most of all, I'd like to thank you all for your kind remarks about the day, the area, and the courses.  It was especially good to hear from competitors who were caught out by the complex terrain but still enjoyed their runs, even if their navigation wasn't as clean as they'd hoped.

On the day, the sand conditions made the run-in more of a slog than expected ...... but in years to come it will probably be remembered as the most memorable 'finish sprint'!

I'd echo Duncan's comments about the CLOK team, who pulled together and made the day a pleasure.

Rob Bailey (CLOK)
Planner