Discussion: Rules

Seems if you were in "shoulder deep water" you may have broken them too?

Shoulder-deep water is only waist-deep on John :-p

Completing a MTB leg without your bike is also against the rules, so I think we proabably were doing the right thing trying to get it back... we certainly weren't making the course any shorter or easier

I think if the organisers had thought about it, they would've said one way or the other that it was either allowable or not permissible to cross the river except at the crossing points. Instead, they said at the briefing "only cross the river in water no deeper than waist deep" - which is neither here nor there when you have teams swimming above (!!!) dangerous rapids for example. Karen who was at that TA saw a bundle of teams cheating but no official did anything about it so maybe the officials did expect teams to swim the river - but just didn't want to encourage it? Grey area. (note I wasn't "crossing the river...")

which is neither here nor there when you have teams swimming above (!!!) dangerous rapids for example

o_O

Tell me they at least had their helmets on?

Sounds like wetsuit, pfd, helmet and bike floaties should have been compulsory for the whole race.

These problems seem more likely to occur with rules announced at the briefing where inevitably, some teams will miss hearing due to others talking/last minute prep or just not paying attention. In this case I think a better approach would have been to have OOB at the dangerous points (where there could possibly be officials checking) clearly marked on the map.

yep, they need to make those rules more obvious and not make it so tempting to break them. Not everyone heard the 'waist deep' bit ( see below) and it wasnt really possible anyway.

http://www.attackpoint.org/log.jsp/user_6680

And there I was just seeing if I could go 'fishing' in the river..:-)

The second last control was in shoulder deep water. Mind you we didn't have to "cross" the river here; just go a few metres into it.

I think they should put it on the map *if* it's a rule - otherwise it's ambiguous. Funny, that link Jen, we saw them and had a very small giggle as they ran the wrong way up the hill, stopped, turned around then came slopping back down towards the control. Only a very small 30s mistake, but it cheered us up. For the record, not one of us for a second thought about their race position so maybe all 3 of us just have puzzled looks on our faces all the time? :-)

Jacko - I was just doing a bit of fishing of my own :-)

When we came away from the last Mtb Leg after being short coarsed the Official at the TA said that the Ranger had just read her the Riot Act about letting people cross the River at Tom's due to the water level rising so much she said that the organisers should have had more sense.....

Can you actually drive a car across there ever?

Yes, but in summer when the water is very very much lower and not flowing dangerously like it was Sunday.

I drove my old little Rocsta 4wd over it heaps in my younger days, once I had water over the bonnet.

Not hearing the bit about not crossing in water deeper than waist deep we crossed just above that 'dangerous rapid'. Which (imho) was safer than Toms crossing the water was almost stationary and much narrower. I would rather cross where we did than Toms crossing But really safety info like that should not have been verbal. I only just caught that gnanga road was oob and had to check with them bost briefing to make sure I heard it right.