Deutsche Version

Cachathon Rules and
Participation Requirements

Preamble

A Cachathon is Geocaching competitive event. All rules and guidelines of Geocaching apply, including all disclaimers and liability exclusions. Every particpant is self-resposnible for his/hers actions. The organizers reserve the right to disqualify persons or teams that do not act "in the spirit of the event".

Participation Requirements

Teams consist of 3 to 5 Persons. All team members must be at least 12 years old, at least one team member must be an adult. Additional childs of less than 12 years may accompany a team. At least one team member must have a Geocaching account with more than 100 founds.

To particpate teams must register before any published deadline and pay any particpation fees that may occur.

Equipment

Each team must bring a GPS unit and a digital camera. The GPS must be capabale of generating a track lock. The camera must be able to generate jpg picture with a time stamp that can be retrieved via USB mass storage mode.

Additional equipment may be carried along, as long as it is not specifically exluded by the organizers.

Items and Information provided

The organizers will provide the particpants at least until the start (possibly also in advance) with information about the caches and zones for pauses. Information will be provided as GPX file as well as in print. Geocaches searched may include existing, published caches, as well as event specific caches.

Procedure

The organizers publish information for start location and start time window as well as maximum tour durations and break durations prior to the event. The organizers decide if and which transportation methods are premissible. The organizers may set a speed limit for hiking areas. Each team decides for itself which caches it tries to find in which order.

Each team records its entire cache tour as GPS track log, including all breaks and searches.

Found it

if a cache is found, teams proceed as follows:

• Teams may enter themselves into the log book and trade items.

• Cache is hidden as it was found.

• After replacing the cache a picture is taken of the hiding place

• If a TerraTouching final coordinate is described in the log, teams still need to visit that coordiante.

Meeting with other teams

If multiple teams are at the same cache at the same time they have to co-operate, as would happen in real caching conditons, too. Every team is responsible for re-hiding the cache as found and documenting this with a picture.

At the Finish

Each team gives the organizers

• The GPX file with the track log
  (if multiple were recorded, team may decide which one to file with the organizers, but only one can be filed)

• If requested, the pictures taken (copied from USB mass media)

Only on timely return and with full delivery of all data does a team get included into the scoring. If data or data parts are missing or there is reasonable suspicion for data manipulation, then this is treated as a "technical failure" and the data is not used for scoring.

Scoring

The team with most points wins.

How many points are given for what are determined by the organizers. The organizers reserve the right to change the method on how points are assigned during the event. This might happen if caches were destroyed or have significantly changed during the event.

The track logs are evaluated by the TerraTouching software. Points are given for zones reached and may be deducted for speed limits ignored or rest times exceeded. Points may be assigned for reaching cache areas or stations of a multi cache.

Recomended Scores

For a cache of type 'Tradi':
Number of points given is the number of stars the cache has for difficulty and terrain rating.

For a cache of type 'Multi':
Number of points given for reaching the final is the number of stars the cache has for difficulty and terrain rating. The same number of points is distributed among the stations of the multi cache, so that the total possible score is twice as high as for a 'tradi'.

Bonus points:
A bonus point is warded, if a track comes very close to the stations. Every time the track is closer than 3m (about 10ft) to a station, a bonus point is awarded. Additional bonus points may be given for extra navigation tasks published by the organizers.