Multi-DF     Sunday May 15th 2016

Organiser - Richard M6EWJ  assisted by chief photographer Alex.

Location -  Chalkney Wood, Earles Colne.

Pub  - The Cricketers.

 
A beautiful day and Alex soon spots that the triffids are breeding

Richard has been planting since early morning
Yes there are test transmissions ...  but what they can hear is a decoy Tx on the same frequency in the back of a white car, I think Steve has spotted it!

Did Alex say "Cheese"?

I see no triffids

Always best to carry a bandage on these events,
a little blood staining is to be expected.


Planning!!!!?                           And he's off .......




The map says it's here  

OK, you have found 10 .... so how do we feel about collecting them in?
Multi-Star Results
Position Competitor Handicap Joker A B F G I J R S Y Z Total Percent
1 Philip C 83 Z 20 17 20 17 32 32 23 23 40 80 221 100
2 Steve S 102 A 80 32 40 40 26 26 15 17 23 20 217 98
3 Rosie M 40 R 23 20 32 20 13 13 64 40 15 15 215 97
4 Colin F 90 I 32 26 17 15 80 40 20 20 20 17 197 89
5 Colin M 43 S 15 15 23 23 15 15 26 64 17 23 193 87
6 Roy E 54 Y 17 13 15 13 23 23 13 13 64 32 172 77
7 Tim P 91 S 26 23 26 26 17 17 40 52 13 13 162 73
8 Gary P 135 Y 13 40 13 32 20 20 17 15 52 26 113 51
9 Bob S 0 J 0 11 0 0 0 22 0 0 0 0 33 14


Well done Philip .... "Speech ......"

Time to take a bearing.
Having had some success in taking bearings at the start over at Tattingstone, I decided, given the size of the wood to try the same again. It needed to be quick and simple and I found space to work a compass board on top of the dog poo bin and a small A4 map board on top of the metal gate.  
The first bearing on A came as no surprise – straight through the middle of the wood. F to the far left, ‘I’ to the far right - looked like things were fanning out as I was managing to take the bearings and plot them straight onto the map before the next signal came on.   Then it got confusing, R was back far left, virtually on top of F, and Z (the joker I was waiting for) was far right in what looked like a footpath in the field.  Good news was I had a fan and my joker was on one end of it.
I had thought everyone else would quickly shoot off, but as I looked about they were all listening through the first five transmissions, apart from Steve who shot off into the middle of the wood – I found out afterwards he had A as a joker.

So I set off somewhat confused on the footpath in the field running round the outside of the wood, thinking Z would be someway off. When it next came up I was really close and had then to find away over the fence back into the wood. It was nasty cover and Z was clearly near the ditch and Y a way off back into the wood. I found the hollow, then Z and coming out found Roy.
The cover around Y was just as tricky and all looked the same, but managed to spot the triffid some way off as it caught my eye. Roy was right behind, moaning that I had just taken his joker, but I still gave him the 32 points.
From my map I knew ‘I’ was my next stop and thought the tricky bit would be finding paths between there and A – F & R.
I found Steve at I & J and found the 40 points had already been taken, but I snuck ahead of Steve on both and politely handed him the 28’s.
I then discovered I had lost my precious map some where along the way, which was bad news but I still had an idea on the way to go.
At B and A, found Rosy and Tim in the chase up and down the path, with Tim leading us in all the wrong directions, before both beating me into A, where I posted what tickets I had.  

Has Alex spotted Philip's subtle sticks?
I should have gone to F next but ended up aiming for R and S.  
At the main junction in the footpaths I decided to lay down some sticks pointing back to A, just in case I got lost later – especially as I now had no map.
R&S were more tricky than I had anticipated, right up at the edge of the wood. Colin F appeared just as I was leaving.
Running round the edge of the wood and stream I then came to the dog kennels where I had had a bad experience some years ago on a night event, so gave them a wide berth. The tracks into F&G were both muddy and well worn by the time I got to them, but still some points to pick up at about 3.05 pm. Gary was going into them just as I came out.
Met up with Colin M who kept trying to convince me we were on the wrong track back to A – but I found my arrow at the junction and posted the final points.
Well thought out event, and well done for Steve for beating me on points but loosing on Handicap – that’s was winning does for you in this game.
A word from the organisers...

It was a brilliant day out for me and everyone competed fairly. It could not have been a better wood for the hunt and thanks to everybody for coming. 

By the way, I was in charge of triffids so I hope they were OK.
Alex

Chalkney Wood is actually too friendly at this time of year with few opportunities to create a difficult TX placement. So it was always going to be a fast event, testing skill and fitness.

In the end Phil gave a text-book demonstration of taking bearings and route planning, only narrowly pushing Steve into second position. My apologies for the mix-up with the I and J tickets; my brain was addled by the time we planted those last two. But we are doing alphabet exercises at home in preparation for next time.  Well done to all and hope it was an enjoyable day.
Richard.
Great job guys, especially the pictures and triiffids!  

Yes well done to Philip & Steve but Gary remains our "Hero".
The next event will be really interesting, can Philip grab the Hero from Gary, a third place (3 points would do it) or will Steve, Colin F or Tim do it with a win (50 points) ?   The rest of us can only try to stop them - our reward would be a Mulit-Star and of course a 50/40 point handicap, don't you just love Triffids, Snakes and Ladders?!

See here for the next event

Now where did I put that ladder?