Orienteering thumb compassesA buyer’s guide
A thumb compass is the standard navigation tool for orienteering. It’s elegantly simple, and less is more. It’s worth searching out those that have avoided clutter such as a rotating bezel or coloured markings, numbers or degrees. These extra features will obscure the map and prove distracting in race conditions. Your compass should have just two things: a wide needle to point north, and a direction pointer marked in centimetres. Most importantly, right-handed people wear a thumb compass on their left hand. Therefore, most people are likely to want a left-hand thumb compass.
Here are my top four recommendations:
Frenson X-Forest £20
Frenson Elite £30
Silva Arc Jet £65
Str8 Original £82
I bought my Str8 compass when it was a little less expensive, and have been really happy with it. Before that I had Silva Jet compasses which were also fast to settle. A month ago I bought the two Frenson compasses for club training and have found them to be absolutely fine. They came from Riga in 3 or 4 days and the service was excellent from All4o.com.
Any questions about thumb compasses or the sport in general then do drop me a line.
Rob.
Robert Lines, Coach.