PROVISIONAL DETAILS: Mixed Forest Enterprise woodland. From the A631 traffic lights in Market Rasen turn North towards Tealby on the B1203. After 2kms park as instructed at the farm near Hamilton Hill.
Control 96 (control 2 on both Short and Long) was mis positioned and has therefore been removed from both courses. The leg between 1 and 3 has been voided.
Report
Tonight’s event started at the north end of the wood for the first time in 20 years. This allowed the planner to give a different perspective to the familiar Willingham Woods area. Planner Mal Humphreys had to ‘think on the hoof’ as the routes he had planned to the first control were altered at the last minute by a noisy herd of cows. However, this gave us all a chance to warm up with an uphill start.
As the evenings are lighter for longer, some of us appear to be getting greater value for money by taking significantly longer to complete our courses. The leaders on the long were heard to say that their course favoured the navigators after previous week’s top performers spent some time looking for number 96 (control 2).
LOG’s Paul Murgatroyd returned to winning ways, whilst experience was clearly an advantage as previous Masters Champions Dean Field and Neil Harvatt recorded their best results of the series so far. It was interesting to see that tonight’s controller managed to mispunch. Under interrogation he admitted to moving a control, in his controlling capacity, and then forgot to punch it!
Former Short course champion, Lee Smith, demonstrated that he still has what it takes, clearly beating the juniors and the ladies. Kaele Pilcher showed herself to be a challenger for the Ladies Trophy, with a superb fourth place. Yasmin Field showed an improvement in form after her recent appendix operation. On the yellow, Dom Simmons made it three in a row, showing he is the one to beat.
