Mid-Atlantic Champs

The annual Battle for the Broken Compass Award (aka the Mid-Atlantic Championships) took place on a surprisingly beautiful November day at the barn by the old grass field airport at the Patuxent River Park. QOC, DVOA, and SVO met again to fight through streams, bogs, mud, and briars (and some lovely open woods too) for this coveted prize. Thanks to all who attended, particularly those DVOA members who came from the furthest north.

There were 176 starts on all the courses. Results for individual courses are posted below; results of the relays are available here. The awarding of the Broken Compass will take place at the Susquehanna Stumble on November 11. It appears likely that strength of QOC numbers, with some regrettable assistance from Hurricane Sandy’s impact on the DVOA heartland likely keeping some DVOA members away, carried the day but we’ll wait until the math has been done before declaring that to be the case. Hopefully we’ll next contest the Mid-Atlantics unaffected by natural disasters.

Update: the score appears to be 507.9 points for QOC, 162.5 points for DVOA and 35.7 points for SVO so a clear victory for QOC. Probably inevitable given that DVOA members outnumbered SVO members by a factor of 6 and were in turn outnumbered by QOC members by a factor of somewhat more than 4 but it does give rise to thoughts of how a scoring system with more competitive balance despite such disparities might be devised to use next time QOC hosts.

In addition to orienteering, there were non-stop tag and chase games, vulture sightings, visits by horse riders, kite flying, football games, and general camaraderie and course/route discussions.

Many thanks to the wonderful volunteers:

A special thank you to Francis Hogle who set the courses, planned the relays, and arranged to get the controls to Dave Linthicum. Francis could not hang the controls or attend Sunday due to the death of his mother in Florida. QOC wishes to express our deepest sympathy to Francis.

A huge thank you also to Dave Linthicum, who took over the job of hanging the controls and setting out the water. He also picked up controls following the meet.

Registration, setup and packing up: Dwight Johnson, John Landers, Jody Landers, Suzanne Izzo, Frank Sigwart, Kim Jepson, Esben Jepson, Jon Torrance.

Epunching: Amy Louden, Heidi Onkst, Valerie Meyer.

Relay Coordinator: Dave Onkst, with help from Jody Landers.

Control pickup: Dave Linthicum, Dan Tam Do, Dave Levine, Sam Listwak (two sets), Tom Strat.

Thanks also to Joe Landers, the grillmaster, and Jody and John Landers for suggesting and then arranging for the daylong barbecuing of hamburgers and hot dogs. Thanks to Amy Louden for her famous cookies, Dan Quinn for the tasty venison, and Ashley Hicks for the “dirt” cake.

Mike Newman, Meet Director

RouteGadget and splits on both WinSplits and Attackpoint are all online for this event.

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