As in the past, the meet director used an unusual format. The courses offered were White (standard) and Search-and-Destroy-O. Search-and-Destroy-O is score-O with a twist. There are no bags at the control points. Instead at each control point there are streamers. At each control visited, the orienteer removes one streamer. Once there are no streamers left at a control point, the control has been destroyed, and orienteers who come later get no credit for the control. The controls were each worth either 1, 2, or 5 points, and there was a time limit of 90 minutes with a penalty of 1 point per minute over time.
In designing the Search-and-Destroy-O course, I tried hard to make it so that people would start in different directions so that everyone would have a chance to find some controls. This worked out–indeed at the mass start orienteers scattered in all directions. As it turned out there were more streamers at each control than needed (I put 12 at each control) and none of the controls got "destroyed", so getting to a control too late was not an issue.
It was a beautiful spring day–perfect weather for orienteering. Although the turnout was smaller than usual, there was an unusually large number of beginners, including many Scouts. Several people went out on the white course first and then also did the Search-and-Destroy-O. Many of the beginners said how much they enjoyed the courses. We hope to see them again at future SMOC events.
An especially big thank you to Suzanne Izzo and Rick Waldo who took care of registration and beginner instruction. They also helped with control pick-up as did Igor Gruskov and Thomas Lee. Thanks to all four for their help.
| Search-and-Destroy-O | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Name | Time | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| White: 1.81 km, 5 controls | |
| Rick Brandt | 22:20 |
| Aaron Traciak & Josh Zenker | 36:48 |
| Josiah Bean & Jonathan Binkel | 41:00 |
| Emmert 2 (Scouts) | 42:48 |
| Anthony Graf | 49:00 |
| Emmert 1 (Scouts) | 55:05 |
| Team Noble | 57:58 |
| Ostaszawski, Veronica, & Marina | 61:30 |
| Mathews & Santure | 63:16 |
Modified May 18, 2008, by Robert Messer.