A new map, a new Champion, the reign of the Lisle is over, well nearly.

Not all the qualifiers appeared for the event – perhaps some had the long term weather forecast. Alan and Graham Jones were given time ‘off sick’ for the event.

The Ipswich map has three rivers striped across it, Stour, Orwell & Deben. Previous events highlighted the difficulties this can cause. So the start was moved to Felixstowe rather than Manningtree, helping eliminate such complications. Three stations were set out in a simple neat fan, none far from the start, none far from each other, with the A14 and A12 minimising time spent on the road. The plan was to go nowhere near, Reading, Slough or any other traffic-light ridden urban sprawl! The aim was to hold out the first place till 3.30pm and have everyone into three by end of contest, with lots of signal to help people at all stages.

Getting across the Deben via Melton onto the Bawdsey peninsular was just missing off the top of the Map, so this was provided with the start details and gave a bit of a clue as to where at least one of the transmitters was located.

The only part of the plan that failed was the weather, heavy rain predicted from 1.00 pm. All teams found bearings on the three stations, lined up behind Andy Collett to leave the start as the rains started and never let up.

Ten teams decided to go for Richard Whitney at A station first. The piece of map provided helped and some wanted to work their way over to the tea, not being put off by the prospect of a long run in. Tim was first at Sutton Heath arriving quickly at 2.14 pm with Peter Lisle after a longer run in right behind, and the young Gary Parker only 10 seconds after. Some teams found they could drive right onto the site and nine were in by 2.30 pm, a good start to any campaign.

Six of the other teams taking the same route found Larby in a bunch at 3.30pm, still in good time and all teams found the B station at some point in the afternoon.

Meanwhile two innocent teams had fallen into the traps laid out by the evil Ian Butson at the C station in Braziers Wood, right by the A14, with fine views on a sunny day overlooking the Orwell estuary and bridge. Andy Collett battled fairly successfully on his own, finding Ian at a respectable 2.35pm. Whilst Graham Nicholls and team tracked most of the large aerial array before finally falling into Ian’s hole at 3.21pm. Having done B, Colin and Rosy arrived at C and came the hard way up the hill into Ian at 3.35pm before scooting off for A.

Peter Lisle’s poor start bearings on B had put him off another potential long run so he decided to do C second. Arriving with a young, but drenched, team they took a good look round Ian’s site before getting in at 3.41 pm.

I was convinced teams would all do C first and having waited all afternoon to take photos of lots of people who never appeared, or I had missed (Andy). By then soaked and leaving for the tea, passed Tim on his way in, not sure who was more surprised, but at least I got a picture. By 3.50pm he had found Ian’s lair, and third station, taking first place in the contest. Tim was the last one to find Ian, all the others for one reason or another failed to make it to Braziers Wood in time, though some said they came really close.

Peter Lisle however made up lost time finding B some half an hour later at 4.20pm, coming in second. Andy Collett had got into the middle site at 3.40pm, finally arriving at Sutton heath for 4.28pm, giving him third place, just seconds ahead of Colin & Rosy, the last of the four teams to find all three stations. The ten other teams finding two wet stations during the afternoon.

After a hot dinner provided by Caroline, the prizes were given by George, with the Lady’s award to Cathy in the Collett team, with Andy also being presented the Rose Bowl for his efforts over the year. Suitably fed and watered the teams were soon off home through the rain and we were left with a new Champion, Tim the elder!

Philip.

Our chances of retaining the trophy for the final were dealt a fairly significant blow this year from the first moments of the competition. Having surveyed the start and deciding that the grass areas at both end of the car park held the potential for hidden ‘traps for the unwary’ in the form of a building and a fence at one end, and a mound with potentially buried pipes and/or cables at the entrance end, I decided to venture into the woodland to the side of the car park. Whatever was in there played havoc with either the signal, or my compass, or both – an experience paralleled by Bill Pechey who also made this unfortunate choice. The end result was bearings on tx’s A and B that were respectively  20 degrees and 10 degrees East of the correct bearings.  

Tx A’s bearing passed along a fairly long stretch of the banks of the River Deben, and we decided that was the most likely to require a long run in. Therefore the question was which tx to go for first – A or C. After a ‘mad fling’ with the idea of going for C which we suspected was near a cluster of electricity pylons near Bramford, we decided a better option was to go for A and aim to pick up two bearings on A and possibly one on B at the 1330 transmission. 

We positioned ourselves near the junction of the B1083 and the long straight road through Sutton Common with the idea of driving along the straight road on the 1330 transmission to get two bearings on A. Lo up came A with a good strong signal, but at a fairly narrow angle to the straight road and I decided that travelling along the road for a mile or so would yield no better cross on the site which, according to my start bearing, was still several miles away. Hence instead of ‘taking two’ on A, I decided to settle for a bearing on all three tx’s. Little did I know that if I had  gone for my original plan we would have driven past the site of tx A with the signal on and would have nailed the location straight away. Instead we journeyed on to Hollesley to explore the wooded area to the South where my bearings crossed. 15 minutes later up came the tx with a parallel bearing back to where I had taken the previous one! ‘Chaps our start bearing can’t be that far off’, I said, so we drove up a minor (but public) track to Bussock Woods north-east of Shottisham where, somewhat comfortingly, we found Paul's car ...(You can read what Paul was doing later Ed.) We sprinted off West, heading towards a suspicious looking  area marked ‘Tumulus’ on the map, and as we got there the tx obligingly came up – but alas: pretty weak and straight on! Too far to come to go back and round, too far to run in from there  and get back again – an invidious choice! A mile later and I came across John Mullin’s car at the right place to drive in, and a couple of minutes later, on a transmission, was beating up the wood near the tx with several other teams. I was slightly surprised, given our debacle in getting on site, to check in 2^nd just behind Tim Parker, but it was clear that we were going to have a significant handicap with the run back to the car. I despatched my lads to the main road with the set and my sweater and jogged back as fast as possible the 1.5 miles back to the car. 

The next question was: how do we make up the 25 minutes that we’d lost. On the basis that Tx B was (according to my bearings) about a mile run from Waldringfield on the banks of the Deben, we decided the only way to win was to go for Tx C first in the hope that it would be a shorter run in. This would have been a good plan if it had not been for the complex aerial. We got to Orwell Park quickly, found Phil’s car in the housing estate, and accessed the wood with a signal on, running over some boarded pathway. The signal was turning to the right and just before the tx finished I had reached the end of the boarding with some delectable looking marshy terrain on the right. In we went, squelching through the mud,  but did not spot the wire which, by all accounts, went to an earth stake in the swamp. Nice one Ian! The next transmission  was taken up extricating ourselves from the swamp and finally deciding, albeit with a lot of difficulty, that the tx was actually further up the hill.  Trouble was that this time the signal took me to the right of this path (away from the tx!) and hence another spell of fruitless searching took place. Eventually, on a further transmission, we finally found Phil (with camera) and hope started to flicker. Tim’s good eyes spotted the aerial and it was then a straightforward tracking job down the bracken and beaten down brambles to the delightful hide that Ian had created in a hollow in the woods. 

3.45pm! Would we have time to get to the last site? Worth a go! We headed to Waldringfield and stopped there at 4pm for the fixed transmission and ‘woa!’ – not on the Deben – in woods near Martlesham! A goodly run in and we found ourselves with others fruitlessly searching a nice overgrown area complete with gully and overhanging tress, a belting signal, but no tx. ’16 minutes to go’ intoned Peter, ‘come and find me’. ‘12 minutes to go’ – where are you all? Humph! Wrong end of the aerial me-thought:  the only way is to get away and come in from a different direction. And so it was – that with 10 mins to go, I finally flung my card at Peter and finished a long, physically demanding, but hugely enjoyable DF.

 Back next year for the trophy and I’ll be staying away from Bill at the start!!!!!