Different route choices

There were quite of few different route options. One of the most interesting region was IMO the SW area. Top 4 teams took all the control points in that region with entry/exit in CP 80 and CP 81. But somehow all four teams managed to take different routes. I still can't figure out which was the best one :)

DOMBROVSKIY-SHESTAKOV
80-31-45-43-44-56-91-82-46-66-71-90-70-81
DE MONCHY-FORNE
80-45-31-91-56-43-44-46-82-66-90-71-70-81
KALININ-YASHCHENKO
80-45-31-91-56-43-44-70-46-82-66-90-71-81
EENSAAR-EENSAAR
81-71-66-82-46-90-70-44-43-56-91-31-45-80

I would definitely rule out the winners choice. 43-44-56 creates very sharp angle.
Also I'm not sure about 66-71-90-70. Did they go directly through swamp? 66-71-90 looks good straight line, but if you go by road E of river, then certainly 66-90-71 is the right choice due to the bridge position. And I think 66->71 was justified only if you continue to 81 as Eensaar's did (although opposite direction)

I measured the other three routes between 81 and 44 (where the difference was) by possible moving route, although I can only assume their actual route. I got:

De MONCHY . . .
20,2 Km. Mostly by roads or well runable rides.

KALININ . .
20,6 KM. Also by roads and rides.

EENSAAR. . .
18,6 km if 66->71 was over swamp or 19,6 if to go around from west. But little less runnable terrain. Like I do not know how 90->46 actually was.

So Eensaars had the shortest path, but more off-road. Although I assume no big difference time-wise, probably their route was the best. Which makes me sad, as we had the same route as De Monchy :-(

Alar

I think it's almost impossible to decide which route is best when you only have the information based on rogain map. The truth reveals itself in the forest. We are quite satisfied with our choice. Entering from 81, the first night leg, it was hard work getting straight SE to the road. Very thick vegetation... Then from 71 to 66 we took a short moment to discuss - straight or around? We decided to go straight through the swamp as the paths on both sides of the swamp were inviting. It wasn't the worst of the swamps we crossed that night (probably one of the worst was river bed between 45 and 80)! The surface was floating on water and felt disturbing, that's for sure, but the closed lake in the moonshine was a nice sight. We didn't go directly across the lake of course. A nice natural helper was a dog in the farm, it was very good to keep direction to the barking. Later we made a directional error going from 91 to 31. After WP4 we headed for a ride by clearing, but missed it and got tangled in a lot of green vegetation. The best route from 91 to 80 was certainly 91-45-31-80. We would have saved about 20 minutes with that choice I think.

Silver Eensaar

71->66 over the swamp was a gamble but it was worth it and we did not have to regret the choice. Although the middle of the swamp (oval) was very wet and we could not cross it, the side was great and bog like.

Our choice 91-31-45-80 turned out not so good as we were in the region in the middle of the night and made quite a big and almost only mistake with 31 (could not interpret the vague map) and in addition lost some time crossing the wide ditch on our way to 80. So the best would have been 91-45-31-80 cos one could use more path and avoid ditch crossing.

Rain