Our team, and the multiple use SplashMaps, were put through their paces today by the leader of the National Tracking School, Perry McGee.
With 30 years of tracking criminals and victims for the Police and Military he had just 3 hours to train the SplashMaps team; an eclectic mix of Pilots, Mountain leaders, Coaches, Country park officials, Italian tourists and … well …me; to become a crack-team of detectives.
Sensitive even to the most subtle changes in the environment at the Queen Elizabeth Country Park we would advance silently on the “spoor” whilst communicating coherently despite the challenges of stinging nettles, brambles and the occasional smoke grenade.
Putting tracking and survival skills into practice gave our team a unique insight for how a SplashMap could be used in Bushcraft, navigation and military situations. Running through the uses of a SplashMap Perry states “The Multiple uses of a SplashMap are quite incredible… anything you could turn your mind to, you could use a SplashMap for …”, and he concluded that “…everyone should have a SplashMap in their tracking kit.” As he said this he rolled up the map of 760 square kilometres into his hollow tracking stick along-side the other essentials of his trade; a vile of water and a tube of fine powder.
Beyond the undoubted clarity and easy to understand cartography, Perry demonstrated uses as;-
- A flag for communicating over long distances (yes, semaphore is still used today!)
- A visual aid to alert aircraft, taking advantage of the bright white back-side of the map
- A way of concealing money and other valuables about the body
- A tourniquet
- A bind to restrain captives (don’t try this at home!)
- A way for transporting medicines
- Cover against the elements in extreme heat and extreme wet
- A weatherproof shelter
- A more robust and long-life alternative to the silk and paper maps currently in use which fail in humidity
- Sun-guard for the back of the neck
- Mosquito and bug guard for the neck and other vulnerable exposed parts of the body.
Perry’s reputation in his field is outstanding. Spending a day with him opens your eyes to a whole new world where every second counts, silence is critical and all your senses are tuned to the most minute detail. It’s also a world where, ideally, all your kit has to have multiple uses and a map is not only a “map”.
It’s great to have Perry’s endorsement of our product and we’re delighted that it’s the potential for SplashMaps in survival and tracking that drew him down from the Yorkshire Dales to share his abilities with us today.
