You’re driving along a road and your GPS trip meter is working well, you come to a section of road that has high-sided walls / rock faces and is covered in trees that overhang the road and suddenly your trip meter freezes, oh look there are two turnings to the right, which one do you take? The other scenario is on a series of hairpin bends or not as map triangles, the GPS sometimes thinks it is backtracking on itself and gives a spurious reading throwing that part of the regularity out and leaving you to guess the rest. Do any of the top crews trust GPS yet? No. But again it boils down to how competitive you want to be.

Sensors can be driven by several means, wheel, speedo cable and prop shaft / drive shaft to name a few, if you want accuracy, this is the way forward, trip meters are easy to calibrate on the whole and range from the relatively inexpensive and easy to use to all singing and dancing models that can almost make you a cup of tea as you go along!

Essentially, they are the office manager, they look after the paperwork on event, the navigation, timekeeping and generally keeping the driver in tow. As you progress together through the sport it will become obvious just how important the navigator is in the team, they can win an event or throw it away with one error, the margin is that fine. So what do you do to keep them happy and performing to the best of their capabilities?

Navigation is a tough skill to acquire and good navigators are in high demand, starting out from a novice can be a daunting task, the more they are nurtured, the more our sport will flourish.

• All of the navigation types found below will be regularly encountered during events with map based navigation, it is useful to be familiar with them all:
• Shortest Route
  Before starting it is important to realise when a route is not specified in detail, the correct route is the shortest route by usable roads. These will be coloured roads or whites, depending on the route instructions. Unless stated otherwise all of the plotting information should be completed in the order specified.
• Map References
  A six-figure map reference defines a square 100m (metres) to the East and 100m to the North of the actual point. Fractions (i.e. ½, ¼) may be used to more accurately define the point but it still defines a square 100m to the east and 100m to the North of the actual point. These may have directions of approach and depart which need to be adhered to.
• Map Grid Squares and Lines
  The grid squares on the OS Landranger (1:50,000) maps are 1km x 1km. Both grid squares and grid lines are used for navigation. Grid squares are identified by four figures, these are the horizontal and vertical gridlines that define on particular box on the map. Grid lines are identified by two figures that may refer to either vertical or horizontal lines.
• Out of Bounds Areas
  These are places that you MUST NOT visit on the event, often called blackspots. By defining which way you can’t go, it should leave only one possible correct route to take, or it’s the shortest route. These can be portrayed in different methods, such as whole grid squares, parts of grid squares and circles around grid squares.
• Jogularity
  Jogularities provide you with all of the information required to complete the correct route, there is no need to use your map. They will tell you where every junction is and which way to turn – either with written / descriptive instructions or using tulip diagrams.

Spot Heights
Spot heights are small dots with an altitude above sea level alongside. Only focus on spot heights which have a dot on the road, all others can be ignored.

• On a spot height section, you must pass though the spot heights listed and you should not pass through any other spot heights. Ignore spot heights close to, but not on, rally route and those indicated by the symbol for Triangulation Pillar, even if they appear to plot on a road.

Herringbones
Herringbones are a very simple method of defining the route, once you understand how they work. Imagine the rally route has been drawn on the map and, at each junction, an additional little bit of road leading away from the route has also been drawn in. The main line of the herringbone (the spine) is the rally route that you want to take and all the additional lines up and down off the spine are the roads that you need to ignore or ‘leave alone’.

So, when you are given a herringbone, the route that you need to take appears as a straight line, showing the roads to miss on the left and right above and below the line. The way to convert the herringbone to a route on your map is to describe to yourself what you see on the herringbone and transfer that to the map.

For example with the herringbone above, reading it from left to right, you say, in sequence, to yourself:

1. “Straight on at crossroads”. Easy! And then you mark that on your map.
2. “Ignore a left”. The next junction on the map is a T-junction so to ‘ignore a left’ you need to turn right at that T-junction. Again, mark that on the map before doing the next piece.
3. “Ignore a right”. The next junction is actually a road on the right so you need to go straight on.
4. “Ignore two roads on the left”. The next junction is a cross-roads. So to ignore two roads on the left you have to turn right at the cross-roads.
5. “Ignore a left”. This should now be clear; you keep straight on – but watch for occasions where you are on a major road the road on the left is actually the continuation of the major road and you have to actually turn off it to ‘keep straight on’.

London Rally Map
These are points provided on a printed map beforehand which must be visited in a pre-set order, possibly with approaches and departs. This style of marked map presentation was most commonly associated with the renowned London Rallies of the 1950s and 60s – hence the name. These points may be provided on different types of maps, its usually useful to copy the location of these onto your own map but always check which map you should be using to plot the correct map- theirs or yours!

If you feel confused or unsure about any types of these navigation then don’t worry, HERO are launching a table top championship  which will utilise these “traditional” plotting techniques, so you can get used to using and learning them in the comfort of your own home!

To conclude a few final thoughts from me, there is no substitute for experience; get out on as many events as you can, I always learn something on a rally and I usually learn the most when I make a mistake, just make sure you learn from it! Competing on a variety of events is always useful too, having a wide skill set is desirable and experience in the dark is a very valuable thing – everything becomes that bit more difficult for a navigator in darkness.

Get your driver involved to help share the workload, if you’ve got a lot of plotting to do focus on that and let your driver take a lead on the timing- although you might not get 0’s and 1’s this way, the important thing is going the right way. Timing is very much a secondary thing.

Don’t be afraid to ask other navigators questions if you’re unsure about anything, chances are if you’re struggling to understand something then others around you are too!