Once again IoMAC archers were in action both on and off the island last weekend. Barbara Harris joined father and son Dave and Rhys Moore on a road trip to shoot in three competitions across England; while ten Club members braved the conditions at Greeba to shoot a variety of Metric rounds on home soil.
Ethan Moore met up with his fellow Club members in Penrith on the Saturday to shoot a WA 1440 hosted by the Eagle Bowmen. The weather was hot and sunny in Penrith, but it was also very windy, with gusts that were never constant at the target face or that were blowing the archers over on the shooting line. The Moores, shooting Compound, had an interesting time of things. Ethan, out of practice due to a back injury, surprised himself by shooting well given the conditions but did not challenge the top places. Dave Moore recorded a miss by shooting into the wrong target, all the more galling in that he had just warned Barbara Harris against doing that very thing. Barbara, for the first time this season, managed to keep all of her arrows on target in spite of the conditions, although she only just broke 1000. Rhys Moore coped best with the conditions clocking up another Master Bowman score to take second place.
The second day of competition at Penrith was to have been a Double WA 720 round (the combined total of two 72 arrow rounds shot at a single distance – 70m for Recurve/50m for Compound). Unfortunately, the gusting winds increased by another 5mph on the Sunday which made staying upright difficult for the archers. Several competitors abandoned the shoot after a dozen or so arrows, while the rest struggled on. Once again Rhys found a way to deal with the conditions. Adopting a machine gun approach, he winged his arrows away as quickly as possible between gusts and kept them all on target. After three dozen arrows the Judges decided to halt the competition on safety grounds and award the medals on the scores as they stood. This time round Rhys’ heroics won him the gold.
The IoM contingent then headed south to the Midlands, braving torrential rain and skirting around the flash floods of Birmingham to attend the Bank Holiday Monday shoot at Meriden. There was no evidence of the heavy overnight thunder storms, instead the archers were faced with 28 degree heat, 95 per cent humidity and flat calm conditions. The competition was the Stephanie Hall WA 1440. Barbara Harris seemed to have a meltdown in the heat as she failed to capitalize on what were perfect shooting conditions. Harris managed to put the wrong sight mark on for one distance and forgot to shoot one of her arrows at another. After a while she resorted to writing instructions on her bow arm to remind herself how to shoot. Ethan put in another solid round and was happy with his weekend. Rhys had a relatively poor 70m but still chalked up his second Master Bowman score of the trip, the third this season.
Meanwhile at Greeba, conditions on Sunday were warm but with a difficult gusty wind. The archers had to pick there moments carefully to shoot. Only three archers – Dave and Jane Berry and Joy Mumford shot the round of the day a WA 1440. The others electing to shoot for only half a day or shoot a shorter distance. Junior archer Tilly Ashton dropped back down to her proper age group distance given the tricky conditions, while Lily Priestnal and Nathan Kinrade were the only competitors to keep all of there arrows on target. Pete Mumford, Danny Cowin, Peter Howland and Ralph Mitchell managed to achieve pb’s due to the fact that they had never shot the rounds before.
Results Greeba WA 1440 – Gents Recurve -D.Berry 133/899/11/3. Ladies Recurve -J.Berry 137/902/2/0. Ladies Compound-J.Gough 143/1178/30/7. Gents Recurve (Long Metric) D.Cowin 64/423/5/2pb. (Long Metric 2) R.Mitchell 56/273/3/2pb. (Metric 2) P.Howland 117/629/6/4pb. Gents Compound (Long Metric 1) P.Mumford 70/604/18/3pb. Junior Recurve –(Metric IV) T.Ashton 143/1178/30/7. (Metric V) L.Priestnal 144/1201/25/11. (Short Metric 3) N.Kinrade 72/470/4.
