Minimising the Controls - by David Marshall.

The fewer the controls the greater the route choice, the less the setting and collecting effort, the better the vetting and the lower the chance of making mistakes. The courses are first divided into four kinds based on navigational difficulty - Hard, Moderate, Easy and Very Easy.

A. All hard courses need hard controls, usually on point features distant from linear features. However, courses 4 and 5 have most of the older veterans, so controls should be on features easy to see on the map, but not easier to find in the field.

To minimise following by runners on different courses starting at the same time, the first control should be different for courses 2, 3 & 4 but courses 1 & 5 can share because speeds are so different. Similarly there should be several last-but-one controls to minimise the “follow-the-leader-home” problem. Otherwise several hard courses can use the same control.

Use 17 - 22 hard controls for courses 1 to 5, or 8 - 12 for Local Long & Medium.

B. The moderate course needs moderate controls on large features close to linear features. It has to bridge the gap between the easy course and the shortest hard course.

Use 6 – 8 moderate controls for course 6, or for Local Short.

C. The easy and very easy courses need easy controls on, or very close to, linear features. Course 7 has few at junctions as the challenge is to short cut these corners, but course 8 needs controls at most junctions but some controls can be common to both courses.

Use 10 – 12 easy + very easy controls for courses 7 & 8 or for Local Novice.

Totals.

33 to 42 for all 8 TOS & SL courses (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7 &C8).

24 to 32 for all 4 Local course (Long + Medium + Short + Novice)