Harwich UrbanSun 21 May

Mayflower Weekend

National level event

Terrain type: Urban

Results

• • Results are now final
• • Routegadget available here

Report

Organisers Report

First of all apologies for the delay in publishing the results. This was due to the receipt on the day of a complaint in relation to the siting of Control 105 and the low levels of light in the tunnel. This was subsequently escalated to a protest and referred to the jury. The jury agreed with the decision that Sarah and I made that the results should stand while acknowledging that there was a degree of unfairness for some competitors with control 105. The full report can be viewed here.

I would like to apologise to all the competitors affected by the issue. The problem arose in the Beacon Hill Fort area with the 1:2500 section of map. This was much more complex than the rest of the map and as the jury said it enhanced the event. The comments that I received from finishers was that they had very much enjoyed the area and the complainant stressed that the event overall had been enjoyable. While the planner and controller believed there was sufficient daylight to view the control adequately, it became apparent that different people adjust differently to changes in light level and so struggled to see the control. If the club uses the Fort in the future, we will bear this in mind when placing controls.

Apart from this the event ran very smoothly thanks to my fantastic band of helpers. Even the weather cooperated. Sarah and Kevin were great to work with. Using the school as a base made much of the organisation easier so my sincere thanks to the headteacher and governors for giving us permission. Thanks are also due to Tending District Council Mayflower 400 and Active Essex for financial support to produce the map and to Barry and the volunteers at Beacon Fort for making us so welcome.

And finally, thank you all for coming.

Lyn West

Planner's comments

It was wonderful to welcome you all to what has become my second home for the last year. I have certainly come to really enjoy my visits to Harwich and Dovercourt. The narrow streets of the old town of Harwich combined with some of the newer developments, make for an interesting environment for course planning. I hope I managed to present some interesting legs through the old town and port area. It was a great privilege to be allowed to use the Beacon Hill Fort (a big thank you to Barry and his team of volunteers for their welcome), which presented its own challenges, namely that the detail required meant a larger scale for those legs and also planning safe routes, not tempting runners too much to go where they were not meant to. It was decided that we could use some of the tunnels, but we were concerned, mainly for safety reasons, that the controls should be located where there was sufficient natural light to see. What we may have overlooked was that not all eyes are equal, and that some runners are in more of a hurry than their eyes would permit (and rightly so, as this is a competition). So, apologies to those that went into the tunnel at 105 and came out believing that they were in the wrong place because they couldn't see! Thank you to the jury who oversaw the protest and for the constructive way that they have ruled on this. Lessons to be learned for next time!

Harwich being quite a narrow strip of land, necessitated the extension into Dovercourt to accommodate courses 1 & 2. This presented the chance to have some longer legs and provide some route choice as well as some climb (Harwich being flat!) particularly beside the coast. Hopefully everyone felt suitably challenged and judging from the kind comments that I received at the end, that appeared to be the case. If you enjoyed your run in Harwich, please get the word around for the next time we have an event here!

A special thank you to Sarah for overseeing my planning and for her constructive help with some of the courses, and also for her enthusiastic approach. Also to Lyn and her fantastic team of helpers ensuring that all went well in the run up to the event and on the day itself.

Kevin Machin

Controller’s comments

Controlling urban events is fun, I get a chance to explore housing estates and their interconnecting paths without having to run! Harwich was made even more interesting as Colin, Lyn and Kevin had got access to use Beacon Hill fort. This was a fascinating place to explore and really made this a unique event. Having controls in the tunnels added to the experience and I think most participants enjoyed their courses. Following the complaint and the protest have certainly given me something to think about next time I control an event.

I enjoyed working with Kevin, who put a lot of thought and effort into planning the courses and getting the map right. There was no way that people would be able to see the detail in Beacon Hill Fort without using a bigger map scale so Kevin went away and worked out how to put the inset on the map.
Sorting out the start layout was also complicated as everyone would be going into the fort and coming back out again and we wanted to avoid conflict there. I think it all worked out okay on the day.

Lyn and her team of helpers did a great job on the day, and were helped by good weather. It seemed like a great event.

Sarah Mansel

Last updated: Sun 28 May, 2023

Overview

Two urban events on the Essex - Suffolk border.
Saturday 20th May - Sudbury - details on SUFFOC website here
Sunday 21st May - Harwich
Part of the UK orienteering league (UKOL), UK Urban League (UKUL), the Southern England Orienteering Urban League (SEOUL) and the East Anglian Urban League (EAUL).

Location Info

Near: Harwich
Lat,Lng: 51.93924,1.28793
Postcode: CO12 3NP
What3Words: ///moguls.ruffling.wasp

Open an interactive map in:
GoogleMap - OpenStreetMap - BingMap (OS 50k)