- Sun - Nov 21, 2021 - Fair Hill Mason-Dixon
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W Y O Br G R Bl Relay
Event Director: Steven Mones
Course Setter: Tom Overbaugh and see choices to Volunteer to help at this event 🙏
Notes:Mid-Atlantic Championships - Click Here to Register
ED/CS Notes:
2021 Mid-Atlantic Orienteering Championships
Fair Hill Mason-Dixon
11/21/2021
Download Printable Parking Pass
Overview
Please Note: The Fair Hill NRMA property has many historic structures and ruins scattered across the landscape and the park's management team asks individuals to stay out of and not climb onto any of the structures as a means to preserve individual safety and the integrity of the resources. Although one - or more - control points may require you to traverse near to these historic sites, please adhere to the direction of the park's management team.DVOA welcomes you to the Mid-Atlantic Championships at Fair Hill!
Everybody is welcome to participate in this event including members of Mid-Atlantic clubs, members of other clubs, and people new to orienteering. You can be competitively vying for the titles of Mid-Atlantic Individual and Relay champion or just out for a fun time in the woods; there are options here for everybody so don’t be intimidated by some of the “competitive” aspects.
The event will consist of two races. In the morning there will be individual classic-length courses. In the afternoon there will be a three-leg relay.
As part of the event, there will be a competition between QOC, SVO, DVOA, and other clubs from the Mid-Atlantic region for the coveted Broken Compass Award. Clubs will earn points based on attendance as well as performance in the classic race and the relay. Everyone is encouraged to participate - you can only help, not hurt, your club by running in races and earning points for your attendance and finish. More details on scoring are below.
In addition to the Broken Compass competition, the times and format will be a little different than you are used to from other DVOA events, so please read the following carefully.
Pre-registration is now open. Pre-registration is required for all courses.
Courses will open at 9:00 AM with the last starts going off at noon. Everyone needs to be out of the woods by 3:00 PM so we can collect all of the controls before it gets dark. But you will want to plan to run on the early side, because in addition to the individual race, the Mid-Atlantic Championships feature team relays, which will begin at 1:30 PM. The relays are a lot of fun and a great chance to build camaraderie with your fellow club members.
You don’t need a relay team yet; clubs will help organize and register teams the day of the event, so don't hesitate to join the fun. If you want to find a relay team in advance, contact the following person who is coordinating relay teams for these clubs:
DVOA - QOC - SVO
So plan on arriving early, staying late, and enjoying a great day of orienteering with your friends from all the Mid-Atlantic clubs at the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Championships!
Directions
Fair Hill is located off of Rt. 273 six miles west of Newark, DE. Enter the park at the fairgrounds entrance on Rt. 273 then proceed east on Ranger Skinner Dr. to the tee with Training Center Dr./Kennel Rd. Take a left and cross over Rt. 273. Follow Training Center Dr. north to the intersection with Tawes Dr. Make a right on Tawes Dr. and follow it downhill to the parking area. Orange and White Orienteering signs will be posted from Rt. 273 to the parking area off of Tawes Dr.
Logistics
The covered bridge area will be the staging area for this event. The park has constructed a large new parking lot there which will accommodate both cars and buses. The pavilion near the covered bridge will be used for Check-in and Results. Start for the regular courses is a short 5 minute walk from the pavilion. Finish for the regular courses is also about a 5 minute walk from the pavilion (don’t forget to download after completing your course!).
When you arrive you will just need to check in to let us know you are here. Volunteers at the start will assign start times on a first-come first-serve basis, ensuring at least 2 minutes between start times on the same course. Maps will be distributed at the start. You will not be able to study the map until after punching start. Participants will have 3 hours to complete their course. The map scale will be 1:10,000 for all regular courses.
Relay Start/Finish are in the field adjacent to the pavilion. The map scale is 1:7500 for the Relay courses.
Schedule
9:00 am – First start, regular courses
12:00 noon – Last start, regular courses
1:30 pm – Mass start, relay (see notes below in Relay section regarding chase start)
3:00 pm – All courses close (regular & Relay), control pick-up begins
4:43 pm – Sunset
Costs
Cost for the classic is $10 for members of any orienteering club or juniors and $12 for all others.
The relay is free for anybody doing a classic course or $5 otherwise.
Courses
To score points on your individual course for any club in the Broken Compass competition, you must choose either the course corresponding to your gender and age or a more difficult course.
However, this is only a consideration if you think you're likely to be one of the faster finishers, male or female, on a course. If that isn't you, simply sign up for the course you prefer for its length/difficulty - you'll still be contributing to your club's score just by taking part, as attendance figures into the Broken Compass scoring, not just the individual course and relay results.
The 'official' courses for each age and gender are listed below:
White: F 12 and under, M 12 and under
Yellow: F 14 and under, M 14 and under
Orange: F 16 and under, M 16 and under
Brown: F 18 and under or 55 and over, M 65 and over
Green: F 20 and under or 35 and over, M 18 and under or 50 and over
Red: F any age, M 20 and under or 35 and over
Blue: M or F any age
As mentioned above, you can run a shorter course than your age+gender is assigned, though you will not be eligible for points for placing highly on the course. To do this, when registering sign up for the "rec" version of the desired course.
In the chart F = female and M = male. The number denotes age on Dec 31, 2021.
The Fair Hill Mason-Dixon Map
The Fair Hill Mason-Dixon map was first produced in 2004. It has undergone updates since then including the latest revision completed in spring of 2021. The latest revision focused on trail changes, deletion of old rootstocks, addition of new rootstocks, and vegetation updates where substantial changes had occurred. One of the keys to orienteering successfully at Fair Hill is choosing entry/exit points between the woods and the fields carefully. Trails should be reliable. Transition vegetation may vary somewhat from what is shown on the map (and has generally thickened).
Course Notes
Terrain is steep in areas. Footwear with good traction is recommended, particularly if the weather is wet.
Fair Hill is a multi-use park. You may encounter other users (particularly equestrians and mountain bikers) while on your course. Horses always have the right of way. If you encounter them, announce your presence well in advance and give them wide berth.
Brown Course participants: The first leg on the Brown course is very short to avoid steeper terrain. Read the map carefully and do not go directly from Start to control #2, bypassing control #1.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to COVID, there will be no water available at the Start, on the courses or at the Finish. Participants must bring their own water.
Relay Details
The relay will have three legs so forming a relay team requires THREE (3) orienteers. Anyone can form a team and a club can enter as many teams as it likes. There will be three classes of relay teams: 3-point, 6-point, and 9-point, according to the total points of the three team members. A team with 3-5 points counts as a 3-point team; 6-8 points counts as a 6-point team, and 9 or more points counts as a 9-point team.
Below are the rules for calculating team member points according to age and gender.
- Ages 17-20 or 35-49 receives 1 point
- Ages 15-16 or 50-59 receives 2 points
- Under 15 years of age or 60 and older receives 3 points
- a female orienteer receives 2 points in addition to any age points
Only teams with members all belonging to the same Mid-Atlantic club and whose team members total at least 3 points can affect the scoring for the Broken Compass. Other teams are more than welcome to participate (please join the fun!) Such teams will have their times posted in the results for placing but will not be factored into the Broken Compass scoring system.
There will be a “chasing” start. 9 point teams will take part in the initial mass start, 6 point teams will start 7 minutes later, 3 point another 7 minutes after that. There will be mass starts for 2nd, and 3rd leg orienteers who haven't already been tagged ~15 minutes after the lead runner on the leg in question starts. We will count each runner’s full time in the result. All classes of team are part of the same competition, i.e. the first 10 club teams whose third leg runners finish, with no one on the team mispunching, are the ones that earn points for their clubs.
All relay maps will be 1:7500 scale, and there will be three courses/legs, with the following stats:
Leg 1: 1.9 km, 80 m, 6 controls - Beginner/Advanced Beginner (White/Yellow) difficulty
Leg 2: 2.3 km, 85 m, 7 controls - Intermediate (Orange) difficulty
Leg 3; 2.9 km, 95 m, 8 controls - Advanced difficulty
Team Scoring for Broken Compass Award
The coveted Broken Compass Award will be awarded to the Mid-Atlantic eligible club with the highest number of points. To keep the burden of computing the scores manageable, it is each competitor's responsibility to make sure the results list them as competing for the correct club and in the correct competitive class.
Points are awarded as follows:
Attendance: 200 x (club members participating/total club membership) - maximum 200 points possible for each club.
Individual Courses: Separate points for top eligible male and female finishers on each course as shown below, for a total of 341 points at stake. To be eligible you must be a current member of a Mid-Atlantic club and must be running the appropriate course according to the table above, or running up in a harder course (so those signed up for a "rec" course are not eligible). Non-eligible members earn attendance points for their club, but will be ignored for purposes of individual course scoring (so they can’t prevent others from earning points). If anyone runs more than one course, only the first course they run counts for attendance and scoring.
While first place for each course and gender is worth 10 points, we have adjusted the number of places for which points are earned to reflect the number of different age groups running that course. For example, the only female ages running the orange course is 15-16, while the green course is run by ages 19-20 and 35-49; thus there are more places that earn points for green course women than for orange course women.
White: F/M: 1st through 3rd - 10/5/2 pts - 17+17=34 points at stake
Yellow: F/M: 1st through 3th - 10/5/2 pts - 17+17=34 points at stake
Orange: F/M 1st through 3rd - 10/5/2 pts - 17+17=34 points at stake
Brown: F 1st through 7th- 10/8/6/5/4/3/2 pts - 38 total points at stake
M 1st through 5th- 10/8/6/4/2 pts - 30 points at stake
Green: F 1st through 7th- 10/8/6/5/4/3/2 pts - 38 total points at stake
M 1st through 6th- 10/8/6/4/3/2 pts - 33 points at stake
Red: F 1st through 6th - 10/8/6/4/3/2 pts - 33 points at stake
M 1st through 6th- 10/8/6/4/3/2 pts - 33 points at stake
There will be no separate male and female points for the blue course, points will be awarded to top finishers' clubs as follows:
Blue - 1st through 7th - 10/8/6/4/3/2/1 pts - 34 total points at stake
Relay: As noted above, the handicapping for the relay will be done by giving higher point teams a head start. Thus all relay teams will be scored together, regardless of how many points the team has.
Relay points: 1st through 10th- 60/50/41/33/26/20/15/11/8/6pts - 270 points at stake
All teams beyond tenth will earn 2 points for their club.
Map Location:
Previous Results from this Map:
Nov 21, 2021
Courses Information:
Course Distance Climb Ctrls White 2.70km 80.0m 11 Yellow 3.20km 95.0m 10 Orange 4.10km 165.0m 11 Brown 3.70km 135.0m 11 Green 5.50km 170.0m 15 Red 7.30km 240.0m 19 Blue 8.80km 255.0m 21 Relay 1.90km 80.0m 6 Relay 2.30km 85.0m 7 Relay 2.90km 95.0m 8
Full Schedule (old style)
PDF Schedule
Unless otherwise noted:
- Pre-registration is recommended, discounted, and open until Thursday night, before the event.
- Day-of-registration is available, at $10 for beginners, and $20 for other courses.
All starts are from 10:00am until 1:00pm unless otherwise noted. Follow the text directions and look for Orienteering road signs as you near the park.
| Legend | |
| W | White, beginner level 3km or less |
| Y | Yellow, advanced beginner 2.5 to 4km |
| O | Orange, intermediate 3.5 to 5.5km |
| Br | Brown, Short Advanced 3 to 5km |
| G | Green, Advanced 4.5 - 7km |
| R | Red, Longer Advanced 6 - 10km |
| Bl | Blue, Long Advanced 8 - 14kms |
| Sc | Score-O |
| Sp | Sprint-O |
| Adv | Advanced |
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E-Punching |
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Confirmed Event |
| Special Event | |
| Example O-Signs: | |
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