10/11/2012 Saturday Orienteering Weelsby Woods Grimsby

Report
As I was placing the controls for Weelsby I thought, I hope we get more than 6 participants this time. Hope won. This was a good turn-out for a Saturday event and the good news is that people are asking when the next one will be staged. Soon is the answer - check with the website after Thursday this week, that's when your committee will be arranging new and exciting events for you.

Dom Simmonds clearly went for the win on the Orange. As well as having a convincing win he helped us identify a problem with some SI boxes failing with his dibber when a gripple cable is through the central hole. Other dibbers were also affected. Chris Simmonds and I did a test on the SI boxes grippled and not grippled back at registration. Some SI Card 5s would not register when a gripple was passing through the central hole, but would, once the gripple was removed. Reading their battery life on SI 'CONFIG' today I noticed that they showed to be very low. So definitely off to the repair shop this time. We should use the outer gripple holes in future though more cumbersome, but what is much more important is that we do not frustrate or penalise competitors for something totally out of their hands.

The first lady in on the 'Technical' was Tracey Blackburn from Grimsby, a regular attender at Wednesday night training, at Oasis Wintringham. Apparently, there was an inpromtu race near the final stages which must have spurred her on. It was between Tracy, Mike and Miles; sometimes this can be helpful, but on the other hand, it can, at times, be quite distracting!

Alex Smith had the run of his life (up to now) with a convincing lead over Mike Smith (HALO Champion) and Brian Hostad last week’s winner. Alex clearly deserved this win after last week’s battle of the brambles at Normanby Hall. Another had gone straight through brambles (years ago) and won, but we suspect he was SAS trained; does this put Alex in a completely new light?

Well done to, star performer, Jacob Smith, 'Son of Woodland Gladiator'; he was determined to get a fast time on the White Course, completing in 7 minutes 26 seconds, 90 seconds in front of W21 Natasha & son Dylan. In 3rd place were Olivia and Eva who are also up and coming stars.

It was nearly a 'Smith' white-wash with mum, Sally, coming 1st on the Yellow Course. Wooton Village did 'white-wash' all other participants with the Smiths and Dom. taking all first places.

Thanks to all the helpers who made registering, instructing, packing up and collecting controls a dream for me. Thank you to those who travelled far to help and compete.

Brian Slater

Next week's event is at East Park HULL.
Full results
Routegadget
Routegadget
Organiser
Brian Slater
Planner
BS