Rayner Trophy 2011 Report
Route: Noordhoek to Simon's Town
Report written by Brian McGeorge of 1st Durbanville
I define Rayner 2011 as “heat, sweat and fatigue all with the goal as being known as one the best Troop competitions in the Western Cape.”
Rayner started this year with us meeting at the Naruna scout hall in Southfield. We then got instructions to apply for a permit for the competition online. I suggested an internet café and Alex quickly ran to one of the judges and asked if there was one nearby. Just our luck there was one down the road. We jumped into the car and shot down to the café where we applied for the permit. We were the first to get our permit correct and uploaded. We went back to the scout hall got all the info and maps we would need and headed to Constantia Nek by car. In the car we tackled the STA’s we had been given. At Constantia Nek, we had an inspection and handed in the STA’s. We got further instructions to drive along Chapman’s peak drive until we reach the scout flag.
They checked our kit and the hiking began. We got to a Kim’s game; we had to use the first letter of each word of the Kim’s game to make a word that represents one of the Laws. Linguistic Jacques quickly found the word and we were off in no time. We continued along the path and got to the next base; we got a Synoptic chart / map and had to predict the weather for the next 24 hours. Both Jacques and I do geography and we have studied synoptic charts in class; this was not too difficult for us. We then hiked all the way up to the peak and we had to a panoramic sketch of the surrounding area and mountains. Jacques did the sketch while the rest of us did STA’s (Alex and Arjen did the flag and I did our logbook). We then had to hike all the way down the mountain to the first aid base at Noordhoek Beach. We met up with Ingrid, Peter and Terry at the base (Arjen received his T-Shirt and hat, which he had forgotten at Naruna Scout hall). I was the victim who had “fallen off a rock”. My patrol did a good job patching me up and we headed about 100m down the beach to the cooking base (supper). We had to make macaroni with a white sauce & mince and a Milk tart. We only had one gas cooker so we lost valuable time at cooking by the time we completed cooking (unfortunately the base was closed so we got no points, we could just eat our supper and leave) we were far behind the pack.
The next base was closed so we pushed on. We got to the next base and we had caught up to the people at the back of the pack; this base was still open! We had to look at an area of the beach that they had set up and describe what had happened to the person, just from the footsteps in the sand. The base had two tasks’ we did one of them and decided to leave the other to gain time (it had a long queue). By leaving the base, we were second team at the next base and had a healthy lead. Next base we had to fill a bottle with water just using our hands or mouths. We went on to Ingrid’s base where we had to desalinate water (we did not get much water) although Ingrid seemed impressed. We had to describe one of the birds that appear at the beach (I have forgotten the name); I read the info off the page and Jacques wrote the answers. We build catapults at the next base (Peter’s & Terry). Ours was brilliant unfortunately, we just could not hit the target, and not even Terry’s crab did the trick. We estimated length of a tree at the next base without touching. Next base we had to tie a sheep bend with just our staves and hooks. The next base was closed by the time we arrived so we carried on to the base where we had to predict how many times the lighthouse flashes (its identification). We arrived at the lighthouse where we had to tie some knots. None of us knew the knots so we left it and went to our sleeping area for the night. Our day ended at one past one in the morning.
We woke at seven and cooked breakfast, eggs on toast with coffee (we scored a good 8 / 10). Handed STAs in and left. We headed to the beach and did a drawing of the beach and sea life. Next, we had to estimate the length of the lighthouse. Our days hike started by climbing the mountain near the lighthouse. We had to do bearing and back bearing at the next base. We continued along our path doing bases (advanced knots, Hyperthermia, life cycle of Antarctica, whippings, crane – lift a rock and move it to the side). I may have forgotten some bases because we did them so fast. We eventually got to Buzz’s base where Arjen and I worked on the STA while Jacques and Alex did a practical bearing task. Once they returned Arjen and I had to retrace Jacques and Alex’s path. We continued down the road and got to a scouting knowledge base, we then went to Just Nuisance’s Grave to find that the base had been closed due to time constraints. We headed down the mountain into Simons town. We had to do a “Scavenger hunt”, find words in the immediate vicinity starting with certain letters (some of ours were very interesting especially one starting with N… ask Arjen). From there we headed to the end (long beach) where we had to swim to the JML Rotary Scout and sing our team song (we got 8/10 for ours); overall, we came seventh and wow, what an experience it was. To sum up Rayner you could use: pain, endurance or brainpower. A Rayner without all three is not a Rayner.
Brian