WOOL HEATH & BOVINGTON WEST Regional Event 5 February 2012
Planner's Comments
With snow and ice sweeping the rest of the country it was a great relief to find that south Dorset enjoyed a relatively warm day. Even Saturday when controls were being put out and temperatures were around zero felt quite warm as there was little wind. The only problem was getting the stakes into the ground which comprised frozen gravel. Hard to believe when you competitors had to contend with a surface which seemed closer to porridge.
I hope you found the courses enjoyable and that they offered some mental as well as physical challenge. The planning process was somewhat truncated in that, due to military use, I was not allowed access until 27 December and with more time I may have made some slight adjustments to courses. I would particularly like to thank Ian Sayer, who as controller, accepted the tight deadlines without complaint.
I hope that the first control on Short Blue, Green and Short green, number 134, didn’t cause too many problems. I should have broken the circle to make the southern re-entrant of the three more visible.Finally thanks to Trevor Bridle for his organisation and to the Bovington Training Area Officer and his assistant for keeping the Army off parts of their training area at key times.
David Bland
Controller’s Comments
I heard nothing but praise for David Bland’s courses on the day. Winning times were just about on the button for most courses (surprisingly the Short Brown and Short Blue were a bit long but nothing untoward. And the Wimborne organising went as smoothly as ever.
I apologise for the mix-up on Control 148 which affected a very few people on the blue course: they have all been reinstated. The control was in the wrong gully and I should have spotted this when checking the controls on the Saturday. Luckily Gavin Clegg reported this very early on so we were able to rectify the problem before too many people were out on the course.
I know that some found the gravel/sand very hard to run on. The previous day in minus temperatures it was a different story. I was worried that we would have injuries from the hardness of the ground so perhaps the lesser of two evils.
Ian Sayer (WSX)