11 Person relay, Sep 2006
Full report and results for the event held at Achlean Forest.
Results by course
Splits By course
RouteGadget
Handicap results & discussion
Organisers report
Controllers report
Planners report
Results:
Overall winners: EUOC Legends
Visitors trophy: ShUOC (The F-R Fan Club)
Handicap trophy: FVO Flyers
| Position | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | EUOC Legends | 01:57 |
| 2 | FVO Flyers | 02:00 |
| 3 | Clyde Destroyers | 02:13 |
| 4 | ShUOC F-R Fan club | 02:23 |
| 5 | GRAMP Carolyn's Team | 02:34 |
| 6 | INT 4-4-2 | 02:40 |
| 7 | RR's for el bough | 02:42 |
| 8 | Cumberland Cream | 02:50 |
| 9 | NEJS Scarlet | 02:55 |
| 10 | NEJS Gold | 03:01 |
| 11 | MAROC Magic | 03:01 |
| 12 | INT 4-3-3 | 03:05 |
| 13 | ESOC Devils | 03:19 |
| 14 | MOR Fun | 03:24 |
| 15 | SOLWAY A Clean Run | 03:33 |
| 16 | AYROC et al | 03:37 |
| 17 | Border Raiders | 03:37 |
| 18 | FVO Fantastic | 04:02 |
| 19 | GRAMP Pete's Team | 04:03 |
| 20 | TINTO Magnificent 11 | 04:53 |
Updated 30th September to include teams that particpated in a mass start.
Handicap
There was some confusion over the handicap results and Clyde Destroyers were awarded the trophy in error at first. The way the handicap is calculated is open to interpretation and for the future a discussion on the Handicap is below.
RouteGadget
You can see the full set of courses and plot your route on the map with RouteGadget. You can also watch an animated replay of the race and see where your competitors went. The more people that enter their route choice the more useful it is.
Organisers Report
First of all, thank you to all the teams who entered the 11 person relay at Achlean. The level of entry astounded us, and mild panic set in as more entries were notified to me. Based on past experience, I had expected about 15 teams.
EckO are a very small club and I recognised that most of our ‘local’ orienteers would not travel the distance to Achlean, so we could be quite tight on helpers. It did also mean that travel time & costs for the planner & organiser would be higher. However, I feel that it was the correct decision – to put the event on with SOL 6 and attract people to some excellent orienteering terrain for a double-header weekend. At this time of year, the west still has some midges, bracken and the weather can be doubtful. We also did not have the manpower to offer any ‘on the day’ courses, but we did provide a huge sandpit for the younger folks to play in!
Stewart Robertson was fully involved as controller. He scrutinised courses, made forest visits and gave us feedback, checked the organisation and gave a huge amount of assistance on the day. Those canes would never have gone in for the start and finish if it had not been for Stewart! When the relay was underway, he kept a watchful eye on proceedings and gave me reminders every so often. Many thanks, Stewart.
On the day, we had a few problems. Some of these arose from multiple team changes and some from the fact that the results printer decided not to work. Thanks for bearing with us and the manual system. Some of the problems arose from my interpretation of the handicap system and I would like to invite all to read and respond to the discussion points.
Of course, one of the problems we had was the awarding of the Handicap trophy. Clyde Destroyers were awarded the trophy but have (very graciously) handed it to FVO. It should have been awarded to FVO Flyers but a team member did not report to registration with their finish time to be manually recorded and so results did not appear for their team.
Finally, the people who I would like to thank as the event would not have happened without them:
- Brian Duff, Inverness Forest District
- Stewart Robertson, (Invoc), Controller
- Paul Frost, Planner & computing
- EckO members who helped on the day (Gill, Fiona, Andrew, Ross, Niall)
- Robin Strain, SI problem solving
- Sheila Strain, multi-tracking as SI card sorter and download monitor
- Kirsten Strain, working out times
- Bob & Ken Daly who helped to collect controls at the end
- Red Cross, Northern Scotland Area
- 6 Day Company for the use of the SI cards
- SOA for use of the map.
Lynne Walker
Controllers Comments
Great weather in a great forest – I should firstly like to thank the Forestry Commission for the use of their forest and all the competitors, especially those of you who came from far away. I hope you all enjoyed the event.
I should also like to thank the EckO orienteers and the Strain family who came to Achlean and helped with the organisation and the computing for the 11 Person Relay. To bring you an orienteering event of the standard that you experienced with so few helpers requires a great deal of pre-race organising and on-day co-ordinated effort.
The Planner, Paul was involved continuously on the computer from mid-morning on the Saturday, initially taking on board all the team changes prior to the competition starting and then winding up the results afterwards till well after 6 pm. This was after having put out the controls on Friday afternoon and having helped with the putting out of the signs, the tent, the layout of the waiting pens and run-outs and run-in first thing on Saturday. Much of his time in the preceding week was also spent on the computer, setting up the parameters (together with the organiser) for the event, printing out the bibs and the maps for each competitor.
The organiser also had to turn her hand to adapting and devising the excellent format for the event to allow for more than twice the number of previous entries. Having a bout of laryngitis the previous weekend did not make the final preparations any easier, so she too had a hard few days leading up to and throughout Saturday. With the malfunction of the printer, it was with good foresight that Lynne had devised a manual method of calculating the team results.
I was very lucky to have two motivated and highly organised people in these key roles.
Many thanks
Stewart Robertson
Planners report
This was my first time planning a large event, let alone a relay, so I had a steep learning curve trying to understand the complexities of relay gaffles and how it all worked in Condes. Thanks go to John Emeleus, Dave Godfree and Lindsay Knox, who sent me copies of files for the relays that they had been involved with. So I had some examples to study and play with. Stewart also provided some good advice after my first attempts.
I now have a bit less hair than when I started and I’m sure it’s a bit greyer, but I did get to enjoy the planning by the end. One cause of my hair loss was the orange course, and trying to get one of the right TD in the same area that I wanted to use for the rest of the courses. I wanted a spectator control, and that put additional constraints on where to go. I knew I wanted the later controls to be in the more technical area to the northeast, when people were getting tired. A late decision to reverse the direction round the northeast and it all came together.
Paul Frost
11 person relay – some points for discussion
This year, the 11 person relay made a big leap forward. The team entry was more than double the 2005 entry and eight more than in 2004.
For the event to move forward, to keep attracting orienteers and to be a reasonable event for the organisers to put on, there should be some changes. Please take the time to read through the points below and respond to Lynne Walker with your thoughts. The points raised and opinions will be passed on to the Competitions Convenor.
- One thing on the day that took up a lot of man power was the number of changes to teams that had to be input to the database. I was taking team changes by email up until Friday morning to try to save as many as possible on the day changes. One team changed their sheet 4 times on the day! It is hard to get 11 people from a club to commit and there is always injury or illness.
Question: should there be a financial payment for team changes on the day (each time a sheet has to be altered)? Level of fee?
Should there be a late entry fee? (approximately 20% of the teams this year were late entries).
Response: There should not be any fee for changes of names on the day as these are inevitable.
If there was the manpower from the organising club, a club could declare that they were entering a team (and pay for the team); team names & age classes could be entered on the day after the club had registered. This would mean that the handicap would have to be calculated after the team declaration. It also relies on the availability of the S.I. cards from the 6-Day Company, so that S. I. cards can be pre-allocated to the legs.
There should be a late entry fee, advertised in advance. - The handicap system itself. At the moment, the weighting of the handicap does little to encourage the younger / older clubs runners. I think the weighting needs to be changed. One suggestion I have had is:
“A system like that at the Harvester where a team has to have a certain minimum handicap to qualify for the handicap competition and then it's simply the quickest of the qualifying teams that wins the trophy. One of the advantages of this system is that everyone knows who is racing who and who is in the lead during the race on the day.” (Thank you, Steve Wilson). This would be simple to administer as well!
Question: Should the handicap weighting be changed to encourage more juniors / older seniors to compete for their club? Should a minimum level of handicap be used for qualifying for the trophy?
Response: The handicap system needs to be looked at so that clubs are encouraged to run the members at the extremes (old & young). As one respondent remarked, EUOC should not be able to come second in the handicap results. More weighting needs to be given to the extremes. Another suggestion was that the main event should be the handicap to encourage clubs to have abroad range of folk in their team.
There was also the suggestion that a ‘Harvester style’ handicap is applied, although this was also disagreed with as well. ACTION: Competitions Convenor. - However, there is the question of the application of the Handicap adjustment: please look at the results table and compare the two adjusted times (Total time & handicap versus Leg 5 time & handicap). The Guidelines say “The winning team is the first team to complete ALL their courses correctly and the Leg 5 runner cross the finishing line.” For the handicap “A handicap class may be offered at the organisers’ discretion”. I had taken the application of the handicap to be on the total team time (i.e. individual leg times added together). This gave a huge amount of work on the day. The alternative is to apply the handicap to the Leg 5 time – a lot less work on the day, but you do have to account for mini mass starts; however this does also take into account team tactics.
Question: how should the handicap system be applied?
Response: It should definitely be applied to the finish time of the last leg runner. ACTION: clarify this in the guidelines.
Other suggestions were:
- Have the mini mass-starts sooner; the main problem with this is to do with adding the ‘extra time’ between the mini mass-start and the leg runner return to the team finish time.
- Have an 8 person relay run at the same time for small clubs (and there a lot of these in Scotland). This would be as the 11 person relay without leg 4.
One person also mentioned results being done ‘handraulically’. A new one for me.
Lynne Walker
11 person relay organiser 2006.
The first columns are how this years handicap result was calculated.
Updated 30th September to include teams that particpated in a mass start.
The calculations
Team no. |
Club |
Handicap |
Total time |
Total time & handicap |
Place |
Leg 5 time |
Leg 5 time & handicap |
Place |
Change from Total time |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
AYROC et al * |
-20 |
7:34 |
7:14 |
16 |
3:37 |
3:17 |
17 |
down |
||
2 |
BASOC |
-28 |
mp |
- |
- |
mp |
- |
- |
- |
||
3 |
BL |
-52 |
7:29 |
6:37 |
12 |
3:37 |
2:45 |
9 |
up |
||
4 |
CLYDE |
9 |
4:35 |
4:44 |
3 |
2:13 |
2:22 |
4 |
down |
||
5 |
CLYDE |
-18 |
mp |
- |
- |
mp |
- |
- |
- |
||
6 |
ESOC |
-25 |
mp |
- |
- |
mp |
- |
- |
- |
||
7 |
ESOC |
-11 |
7:13 |
7:02 |
14 |
3:19 |
3:08 |
16 |
down |
||
8 |
EUOC |
16 |
4:09 |
4:25 |
2 |
1:57 |
2:13 |
2 |
= |
||
9 |
FVO |
1 |
4:21 |
4:22 |
1 |
2:00 |
2:01 |
1 |
= |
||
10 |
FVO |
-14 |
7:58 |
7:44 |
18 |
4:02 |
3:48 |
20 |
down |
||
11 |
GRAMP |
-10 |
5:19 |
5:09 |
4 |
2:34 |
2:24 |
5 |
down |
||
12 |
GRAMP |
-29 |
8:35 |
8:06 |
20 |
4:03 |
3:34 |
19 |
up |
||
13 |
INT |
12 |
5:22 |
5:34 |
6 |
2:40 |
2:52 |
12 |
down |
||
14 |
INT |
1 |
6:39 |
6:40 |
13 |
3:05 |
3:04 |
15 |
down |
||
15 |
KFO et al |
-17 |
mp |
- |
- |
mp |
- |
- |
- |
||
16 |
MAROC |
-15 |
6:46 |
6:31 |
11 |
3:01 |
2:46 |
10 |
up |
||
17 |
MOR |
-10 |
7:47 |
7:37 |
17 |
3:24 |
3:04 |
13 |
up |
||
18 |
NEJS |
-13 |
6:07 |
5:54 |
8 |
2:55 |
2:42 |
7 |
up |
||
19 |
NEJS |
-10 |
6:27 |
6:17 |
10 |
3:01 |
2:51 |
11 |
down |
||
20 |
RR |
-21 |
6:00 |
5:39 |
7 |
2:42 |
2:21 |
3 |
up |
||
21 |
ShUOC |
18 |
5:14 |
5:32 |
5 |
2:23 |
2:41 |
6 |
down |
||
22 |
SOLWAY |
-29 |
8:31 |
8:02 |
19 |
3:33 |
3:04 |
14 |
up |
||
23 |
STAG * |
1 |
7:05 |
7:06 |
15 |
3:24 |
3:25 |
18 |
down |
||
24 |
TINTO |
-29 |
10:09 |
9:40 |
21 |
4:53 |
4:24 |
21 |
= |
||
25 |
WCOC |
-5 |
6:05 |
6:00 |
9 |
2:50 |
2:45 |
8 |
up |
* These teams had people running multiple legs, so were "non-comp", but have been left in for comparision.
Posted on 09th Sep 06
by Paul Frost - Website, Membership, Publicity
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