Orientation | “Turns night into day” – is there a limit to what kind of light cannon you can use to navigate at night?

Super-efficient headlamps have brought exotic night orienteering closer to daylight orienteering.

“Change night into day.”

Such an image is used to market, for example, the headlamp recently launched by Silva, which manufactures headlamps and compasses.

Its luminous flux is stated to be no less than 10,000 lumens and the length of the light beam to be more than 300 meters.

In 2020, when Suunnistaja-lehti conducted a comprehensive test of the headlamps suitable for the sport on the market, the stated amount of luminous flux of the most efficient lamps was more than 6,000 lumens.

This weekend in Mikkeli’s Anttola, there will be a competition for the night orienteering Finnish championships. The question arises, is there any limit to what kind of light cannon you can put on the line with?

In the orienteering association event and club manager responsible for rules Timo Saarinen says that there are no restrictions on headlamps in the sport rules.

“Of course, technology has made it so that the powers of the lamps have increased. At some point, the question may come up as to whether it should be limited in some way if the development of lamps continues like this,” says Saarinen.

How would it sound if someone came to a night orienteering competition with a 10,000 lumen lamp?

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“The basic essence of the sport would probably come under scrutiny at that point. The current light output has already clearly changed the original nature of the species. Night orienteering has become closer to daytime orienteering.”

Last year, the Orienteering Association changed its rules regarding night orienteering so that the reflectors were removed from the checkerswhich helped to detect them in the dark.

“The decision has somewhat divided opinions, but this development of lights is partly behind it. The spotlight picks up the reflector from even further away.”

On my own Saarinen, who has won two Finnish night orienteering championships in his career, thinks about how much an individual orienteer’s performance will improve if he can use a 10,000 lumen lamp instead of a 5,000 lumen headlamp.

“Map reading becomes difficult in practice all the time, because the light output is so huge that it reflects back from the plasticized map. That’s why nowadays the map is read at the edge of the spotlight.”

Saarinen himself was a running tester in the aforementioned Suunnistaja magazine test.

“There, at the top end, the differences were quite small in terms of power. The effect wasn’t terribly big because the cone extends up to a certain point. I don’t think it will make it terribly easy to navigate, even if the power is increased.”

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Saarinen points out that if headlamps were to be restricted in some way, control would be really difficult.

“Obviously, it sounds pretty harsh if the equipment has to be inspected somehow before you get to the competition. Another option is to limit the use of certain lamps, but that doesn’t sound terribly good in a free market economy.”

Saarinen recalls that the rapid technical development of headlamps began more than 15 years ago.

“We switched from halogens to gas discharge lights, that is when xenons came. It really changed a lot, and then the prices also jumped. When it was switched to LED technology, it was a notch harder again,” says Saarinen, who in the Jukola relay in 2006 guided the long night leg in the Tampere Pyrinnö team that finished third.

in Finland night orienteering competitions are focused on autumn, because there is not much darkness available in summer. Saarinen estimates that roughly only five percent of the starts in domestic individual competitions during the season take place in night races.

Besides Jukola, the opportunity for night orienteering is offered in a couple of Viestliiga competitions.

“Most of the orienteers’ night training is linked to the preparation for Jukola and Tiomila.” Tiomila is the Swedish equivalent of Jukola.

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How have more efficient lamps changed night orientation?

“The navigator sees a wider area of ​​the terrain and is able to observe more objects. Because of this, it starts to resemble day orienteering more. It has been a clear trend.”

According to Saarinen, night orienteering tactics used to include accurate heading, because the orienteer could not mirror so many terrain features from the sides.

“I bet that now navigation technology at night is close to what it is in daylight. The route choices are more straightforward than before, when more circuitous route choices were taken, where we played it safe.”

According to Saarinen’s findings, current headlamps have lowered the threshold for enthusiasts to try night orienteering. This has been seen in the evening races, some of which are organized in autumn as night orienteering.

“Before, night orienteering was seen as a sport for real hc orienteers, but when I went to Tampere’s evening races myself, there were a delightfully large number of regular fitness orienteers. Many feel that it has a good different challenge. Nowadays, you can get a good enough lamp relatively inexpensively.”

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