Adventure Challenge Week 5

Congratulations to the Week Five Adventure Skills Challenge Winners (Following Bearings) who are

THE DASHERS

Below is the scoring table for this challenge and the overall standings after the fifth round. It’s still a tight contest at the top with everything to play for with one challenge left!

This was a difficult challenge because it requires both precision with a compass and accurate pacing. Small errors can lead to large overall positional errors. This exercise is something we in fact are tested on in SAR for our team leader candidates. Despite the difficulty there were a number of teams who got within a meter or two of the correct end points! Congratulations to those teams for their excellent compass/pacing work! As per usual, we up-scored teams who provided their GPS tracks and good photos.

With an exercise like this it’s important to consider the accuracy of the GPS readings when reporting the final positions. The accuracy can make a big difference in a precise exercise like this, so it’s a good idea to make sure your GPS device is reporting good accuracy. If it isn’t, let it settle for a while. Also, report at least 6 digits with decimal longitude and latitude. 6 digits has an accuracy of 11cm, whilst 5 only has an accuracy of 1.1m. Some teams may have suffered from truncation issues in this exercise.

A few teams encountered some difficulties with temporary fencing. As one team pointed out, if an obstacle is encountered when pacing a route then you can bypass the obstacle by “boxing” around it with three consecutive offsets of 90 degrees. A back bearing can sometimes be used to check the integrity of the direction after the detour.

Here are the prizes to be awarded to this week’s winners. Prizes will be awarded at Golden Spike Days or by arrangement afterwards.