2012 Collier Cup Round 4

06 July 2012

Only four teams turned up for the fourth round of the Collier Cup. Mark Coventry was on the transmitter. The signal at the start was identifiable but very weak and no-one felt confident so the approximate bearing of 45 degrees was revealed.

I think everyone headed off through Chinnor and past Princes Risborough. I ended up near Butlers Cross but heard nothing so concluded that it must be much nearer to the start. At 8:15 I was just north of Chinnor and heard a reasonable signal with a bearing of 135 degrees. This, together with the 4 km bars bracketed it rather nicely. There was no obvious place so I decided that another bearing was needed. At 8:30, the signal was, if anything, weaker and on the same 135 degree bearing!

When one is baffled, I was always told to trust ones set, so we decided to head down towards Marlow. As I got back into the car my phone alerted me to a voicemail message. It was from Brian. He had been called by Mark who had realised that he had given an incorrect approximate bearing and that the true one was about 135 degress! Brian was not taking part but his number was the only one that Mark had.

It now all made sense and we went to the Longridge water sports centre to take the next bearing. This was rather confusing and led me to believe that the station was in Marlow itself. Careful scrutiny of the map showed a footpath on the north side of the river that looked promising. Finding the way to get to it through a housing esate was a bit tricky. We managed it but found nowhere to park. I jumped out of the car and Doreen drove off to find somewhere. Peter then arrived and we set off down the track. The signal was strong and seemed to come from the right hand side. Suddenly it turned as a gap in the fence appeared with a second path leading off. We ran down the path for about 200 yards when the signal peaked up but I couldn't get a bearing. This was a bit baffling because the signal wasn't really loud enough.

After the confusion we carried on along the path and the signal got very much louder and it looked as if Mark was in the middle of a very large expanse of brambles. It was not possible to go through so we went round; Peter clockwise and me the other way. It turned out my way was the better but Peter soon realised his error and followed me. There were lots of possible hiding places and Peter managed to find Mark about a minute before I did.

Mark was extremely apologetic about the approximate bearing but justice was done because he was very badly bitten by mosquitoes!

John arrived on site soon after we had got in and went through the same trials and errors as we had. He did find the staion but, sadly, a minute or two out of time. Alan had given up earlier and had gone to the pub.

Thanks to Mark for finding an excellent site so close to the town.

Bill Pechey

Competitor Time Adj. Time Time Diff. Score Bill North
Peter Lisle 21:17:25 21:17:25 00:00:00 -5 10
Bill Pechey 21:18:21 21:18:21 00:00:56 2 6
John Mullins NF 21:38:21 00:20:56 23 4
Alan Simmons NF 21:38:21 00:20:56 23 4
Mark Coventry op - - - 4