The New England Orienteering Club

Logistics


View A-Meet Parking in a larger map

Parking on both days will be at Hawthorne Brook Middle School, 64 Brookline St., Townsend, MA. The arena is a 700m walk through the forest from parking. Competitors will first proceed to the event arena before going to the starts.

The walk to the start on Saturday is 1.5 km with 20m of climb. White and Yellow have a 750m walk from the arena to their start location. On Sunday, the walk to the start for all classes is 500m. From parking to the start, allow 30 minutes on Day 1 and 15 minutes on Day 2. If the walk to the start will be excessively onerous, please contact us; we will give you directions to a trailhead closer to the start where you can arrange to be dropped off.

Day Parking to Arena Arena to Start
Day 1 W/Y 0.7 km, 12 mins 0.7 km, 12 mins
Day 1 Other courses 0.7 km, 12 mins 1.5 km, 25 mins
Day 2 0.7 km, 12 mins 0.5 km, 10 mins

arena wide arena tight townsend woods


Click to download start map

Day 2 Chase Start

Day 2 will feature a Chase Start - a novelty at most US meets. Chase starts are common at major European orienteering festivals like Oringen and the Swiss O-week. The start times for all competitors on a particular course on Day 2 are given by their finishing times on Day 1. Each competitor starts exactly the same interval back of the winner on that course as their result on the first day. The finishing order and finishing time is identical to the order and time which people cross the finish line on Day 2. Start times are determined by course, not class.

After a certain window of time - about 45 minutes, depending on the course - the start will switch to an interval start to keep the start window short. Competitors who finish more than 45 minutes back of the winner on Day 1 will start at 1 minute intervals. The shorter start intervals will better mimic the intensity and interaction of the chase start.

The start times for Day 2 will be made available on Saturday afternoon and posted online and at the meet site on Sunday. Different courses will start at different times to maximize spectating and simplify work for the start crew

Awards will be given based on combined time from the two days.

Classes

White Yellow Orange Brown Green Red Blue
F-10 F-14 F-16 F-18 M65+ F-20  F21+   M21+
F-12 M-14 M-16 F55+ M70+ F35+  M-20  
M-10  M-Yellow M-Orange  F60+ M75+  F40+  M35+   
M-12 F-Yellow  F-Orange  F65+ M80+  F45+  M40+   
 M-White     F70+ M-Brown F50+  M45+   
F-White      F75+   M-18  M-Red   
      F80+   M50+     
      F-Brown   M55+     
          M60+    
          M/F-Green    

For more about the course and class structure, see the OUSA Rules.  The open classes like M-Orange and F-Green are open to anyone regardless of age but are ineligible for prizes.  Courses will be split as needed to accommodate registrants, e.g. Green-X and Green-Y.  

Winning Times

Approximate winning times as per the OUSA Classic course guidelines:

White 20-30 min
Yellow 25-40 min
Orange 35-50 min
Brown 40-50 min
Green 45-55 min
Red 60-75 min
Blue 70-80 min

Course Notes

Townsend Map Notes, 1:10,000, 2.5m contours

The new map of Townsend was created in the fall of 2013 with field work by Marcello Pradel and the basemap created from detailed lidar data by Ed Despard.

The new map is a huge improvement compared with the old map and allows us to set some highly technical and challenging courses. The area has few trails so it has been easy for us to set some really interesting advanced courses.

Vegetation: The mapped vegetation should be very accurate and something that you can use as part of your navigation. The white woods are very runnable and you can see far in those areas. There are primarily two shades of green mapped. The light green mapped is terrain with younger saplings that should be quite runnable in November with the leaves down, though not as fast as white woods. The darker green is mountain laurel and is not really passable. It can effectively be used for navigation though as the border is very destict.

Rock Features: Some areas of the map have a lot of rocks and others very few. The size of rocks included varies between the areas, where in some areas with few rocks, rocks less than 1m have been included.

Day 1 Course Notes

Walk to Start: 1km, 20m climb

White, Yellow Walk to Start: 500m

Course Time Limit: 3 hr

Safety Bearing: South

The day 1 courses are classic distance courses with a mix of technical and route choice legs.

Course

Length (km)

Climb (m)

Controls

Scale

White

1.7

 

7

1:10,000

Yellow

2

 

11

1:10,000

Orange

4.3

 

13

1:10,000

Brown Y

3.4

 

10

1:10,000

Brown X

3.5

 

10

1:10,000

Green Y

5.6

 

12

1:10,000

Green X

5.5

 

12

1:10,000

Red

7.0

 

15

1:10,000

Blue

8.5

 

21

1:10,000

 

Day 2 Course Notes

Walk to Start: 500m, no climb

Course Time Limit: 3 hr

Safety Bearing: South

The day 2 courses are also classic distance courses with a mix of technical and route choice legs, but with the added consideration of the day having a chase start. Especially the longer advanced courses will have legs were you have the opportunity to see people chasing you.

Course

Length (km)

Climb (m)

Controls

Scale

White

1.7

20

7

1:10,000

Yellow

2.3

35

12

1:10,000

Orange

4.7

110

12

1:10,000

Brown Y

3.2

50

13

1:10,000

Brown X

3.6

70

12

1:10,000

Green Y

5.0

105

17

1:10,000

Green X

5.3

95

16

1:10,000

Red

6.7

160

17

1:10,000

Blue

8.6

230

28

1:10,000

Trail-O Notes

Note: Trail-O start is open from 12-3pm. You may start before your assigned start time, so head to the trail-O start as soon as you can. It gets dark earlier and earlier in the fall and at 4.30 pm light may already be an issue.

This event is a national ranking event for trail orienteering. This trail-O will consist of 2 timed controls and 17 standard controls. For the standard controls you will have 90 minutes to complete. After registering at the start, you will be directed to the timed control, where you will solve two problems with a 1:2000 map oriented in the direction you will be facing. The control flags are defined to be from left to right A-E. When you sit down to solve the problem you will be given a map in a folder and asked if you can see all 5 flags and instructed to start. That will start your time for the first timed control. You have 60 seconds to solve the problem. Once you have solved the problem you will be instructed to turn the page in the folder and solve another problem with the same set of flags. Your time for the second timed control will start when you turn the page.

Once you are done with the timed controls you will be given a map with the standard controls and your start time is recorded. You now have 90 minutes to complete the course with 17 additional problems. You will use a pin punch at each control located at the viewing station. The order from left to right of the flags when viewed from the viewing station will be A-E. The control description for each control tells you how many flags you should expect to see. Choose the correct flag location. For all non-timed controls an option Z (none of the above flag locations) also exists.

The Troll Cup trail-O consists of two different types of terrain:

  • the woods surrounding the middle school/elementary school/library/senior center, and

  • the paved roads and parking areas immediately adjacent to the same.

In the woods:

  • you are required to stay on the large trails (marked with a brown infill with a black dashed boundary) and

  • are not allowed to leave these trails or use smaller trails (black dashed line).

In the area immediately surrounding the middle school:

  • you are required to stay on the paved areas (marked with brown infill with a solid black boundary).

Additionally:

  • Some trails and paved areas have been marked out-of-bounds by an uncrossable boundary symbol (purple thick line). Those are marked in the terrain with flags, indicating the location of the boundary.

  • There is a small section connecting the trail in the woods to the paved area, where you will be required to cross over a patch of grass. This crossing location is marked with mandatory marked route symbol on your map and with flags lining the sides of this route in the terrain.

Mapping Standards

The map will be 1:5000 scale with 2.5 m contours using the ISSOM mapping standard. Boulders smaller than 0.5 m in height have been excluded from the map. Individual trees have been mapped with green circle symbol where those symbols would not overlap. In some locations the apparently individual trees are too close to each other to be mapped this way. In those instances the "open land with scattered trees" symbol is used. There are a lot of small individual trees that are not on the map. These trees are less than 20 cm in diameter.

When you finish you will turn in your control card and your map. Once everyone has started you may collect your map and a copy of the solutions. Good luck.

Trail-O in Numbers

Timed controls:  2
Regular controls:  17
Maximum time to complete the course:  90 minutes
Maximum time for timed control:  60 seconds
Total distance covered by the course:  1.9 km
Time penalty for exceeding 90 minutes:  1 point / 5 minutes of (or fraction of 5 minutes) over time