theSun hunt 2008 - Brilliant Q25

The answer (or should I say question?) for Q25 was staring at me.

Q25 (bolded). Bays?

A25. Vocal Station @ Golden Sun

I thought this was a brilliant question.

It was a Double Jeopardy question. The question itself was the answer. And hunters were required to find the signboard that could be a question for Q25.

There are not many signboards that the CoC can use for Double Jeopardy. Basically you need some key words in the signboard for this type of question. Naturally, I think, CoC would be tempted to use Double Jeopardy whenever they have the chance.

I've never liked short clue, Q25 has just one single-syllable word. It didn't tell you much. Figuring out the CoC's intention was like finding a needle in the ocean.

We scanned this long sector on foot but didn't manage to get it. I was looking for a word that could mean "cry", "howl", "space" etc. I didn't find any.

Why I say this was a brilliant question? Because the presence of the question mark, "?" It disguised itself as a direct question, rather than a Double Jeopardy question. So many hunters (including me) were led thinking elsewhere.

In the end this was what Dom was meaning to say:

"Station" can mean "base." "Vocal" can be sounds-like indicator. "Bays" is a homonym of "base". Therefore the intended answer, "Vocal Station."

In the IOI run this morning, I was near this sector. I went back to this sector and took photo of the board (see photo above). I've seen the board earlier during the hunt but the light bulb remained off that time. Argh...

But I still think this was a solvable clue. And it was solved by a few teams only according to Dom. We were running out of time (during the hunt) and the sector was badly congested. We decided to move on and try to get the rest. I didn't want to give up on Q25 but I remember we made the decision as a team to move on. Come to think of it now, it was another wise decision that we'd made.