Discussion: compass for park and street events?

I've done one street and a handful of park events and have realised I don't use my compass much for them and probably could get by without it. The one time it really came in handy was at the street event when I overshot a turn and ended up lost and disoriented - setting the map to north quickly revealed where I was whereas I might have needed to find several obvious reference points to orient it otherwise. In park events I have sometimes used the compass to point me in the right general direction when visibility of other features wasn't good.

Anyway, I'm wondering if the more advanced orienteers even take a compass for these events and if so, what do you use it for (bearings, re-orienting etc)?

No for street-O.

No for local sprint (urban) events.

Yes for interstate sprint events for some reason, maybe because the sun is in a different location so I don't automatically know where north is. I only tend to use it if there's a bush section though. If I cannot figure out where I am in an urban setting, there is no hope that knowing where north is will help.

Park/Sprint - Yes
Street - No, but a couple of times it might have helped.

A thumby is hardly heavy and holds on to me rather than the other way around so it isn't really that big of a drag to carry around.

The best sprints get you really turned around. Some might say the compass is a crutch, but every once in a while I need to spin around until the north lines match the compass needle.

How many spins do you have to do until that happens? Are you using the wrong compass? Maybe yours is a southern hemisphere one.

At least three rotations at each control.

I actually bought a southern hemisphere compass on ebay once. Big mistake. It's pretty shocking how much it doesn't work right.

Yeah my rogaine partner had a northern hemisphere one for the Aus Rogaine Champs a few years back. Needless to say we did not do well. The worst thing was she'd bought it from a local camping store and they'd neglected to mention the fact even though we are in the south.

Street events - no, sprint yes, but mainly because my compass has a magnifier attached.

Always carry a thumb compass, but hardly ever use it for sprints or street-o.
Magnifier helps though as simmo mentions above.
Isn´t it ironic that you actually need a magnifier for a 1:4000 (or thereabouts) map...?

Street - no, but I might if I thought it was a serious event
Sprint - yes, just to try to limit opportunitiese to get disoriented coming in and out of controls and to make sure I get the angles right across large oval spaces when there isn't always an obvious feature to aim at on the other side. And sometimes there's a couple of bush legs in sprints where it might help you hold a striaght line.

I would say you should always carry your compass, and try to regularly use it if the situation warrants. Yes, you could probably get by without it, but why not have it with you to practice good habits for when doing a big race or going back to the forest?

I used to have a little 5c-sized compass attached to my watch strap - after I got thoroughly disoriented in a maze of square street blocks and couldn't figure anything out.

Yes all the time with my thumb compass as it holds the map right, and sometimes stops me going in stupid directions