Sixteen and a half archers turned up to shoot at Greeba on Sunday. The half an archer was Records Officer Barbara Harris, who had been experimenting with a new champagne-based cocktail the previous evening which appeared to have transported her brain to some parallel dimension. Barbara’s struggles throughout the day were the focus of much ridicule. Between the bellowing of a herd of cattle in an adjacent field, the growls from Danny Cowin as he ‘only’ hit a nine, the incredible heat and the banter it was not a typical shoot.
Somehow midst all the sunshine and the sarcasm some archery was perpetrated which resulted in three Club Records being broken and six archers recording personal best scores.
The round of the day was a Metric I, that is three dozen arrows shot at each of four distances-70/60/50/30m. The shoot was divided by bow type so the Ladies and Gents were in direct competition with one another, thus a certain amount of pride was at stake.
In the Compound division, Joy Gough lined up against David Moore, Pete Mumford and Rhys Moore. The result was never in any doubt considering Rhys Moore’s form. Rhys had a 36 point lead by the half-way stage. With the sun gradually turned him the colour of a boiled lobster, he shot a relatively poor 50m but bounced back at 30 to finish 70 points ahead of his nearest rival, adding 2 points to his pb and breaking his own Club Record. Dave Moore started in second place and stayed there and the real match was between Joy and Pete for third. Interestingly both Joy and Pete were experimenting with their bows. Joy shot the first dozen arrows with a ring clarifier before switching to one with a dot for the second dozen. Her score immediately improved and she stuck with the second option for the remainder of the shoot. Pete had taken some poundage off his bow and was shooting with slightly heavier arrows, so effectively he had no sight marks. He ‘guesstimated’ a sight mark for 70m and then used a graph to predict what the remaining sight marks would be. His initial guess was pretty close but Joy outshot him at the 70m and then outshot him again at 60m. Going into the afternoon Joy had a 4 point lead but she put in a relatively poor 50m which allowed Pete to overturn the deficit. He added another handful of points at 30m to take third place just 10 points ahead of Joy, who at least had the satisfaction of having hit more 10’s than Pete over the day.
In the Recurve division Dave Berry, Danny Cowin, Toby Young, Peter Howland and Barbara Harris made a bid for glory. The result here too was never really in doubt, Danny Cowin being far and away the best recurve archer at the Club, but the others were hoping to make life difficult for him. As it was Danny made life difficult for himself by failing to put his bow together correctly which meant he put three of his practice arrows into the grass before Rhys Moore identified the problem. It then became apparent that the bracing height was wrong and the sight mark he had for 70m was nowhere near. Dave Berry was struggling with the pain in his knee, teenager Toby Young was struggling to stay awake and Barbara Harris was just struggling. Never a sun worshipper Harris began shedding layers in an effort to stay cool. She ignored the complaints from her colleagues that the glare from her bare arms was blinding them and tried to concentrate on standing up and shooting. At the end of the first distance Danny had a 1 point lead over Dave Berry, with Barbara a further 2 points behind. It was the closest Dave and Barbara would get as Danny powered home to take victory by a clear 55 points. Peter Howland continued to make steady progress in his first Outdoor season, adding 42 points to his pb for the round but had to settle for last place. Toby Young woke up long enough to knock himself sick eating an almost entire box of chocolate biscuits for fear they would melt. In spite of this Toby, shooting the round for the first time, smashed the Club Record for u16 Gents by an impressive 50 points but had to make do with fourth place. The battle for second fell to Dave Berry and Barbara Harris. Dave had a 7 point lead going into the afternoon and a poor start at 50m by Barbara, who couldn’t even remember if she had shot or not, saw his lead extend to 14. Barbara then had a miss which put Dave 27 points ahead of her going into the final dozen. Barbara indulged in a little judicious barracking between ends which resulted in Dave putting an arrow into the grass. At the same time Barbara suddenly remembered how to shoot and put her last three arrows into the 10 turning the 27 point deficit into an 8 point lead. Harris hammered home her advantage at the 30m finishing 26 points ahead of Dave to secure second place.
Junior archers Tilly Ashton, Lily Priestnal and Jacob Brookes were also in action. Tilly and Lily shot all day, Lily getting within 5 points of the Club Record she set the previous week in the Metric V (30/20/15/10m). Tilly Ashton, shooting an age category above her own added 39 points to her pb and broke the Club Record for the Metric III (50/40/30/20m). Jacob Brookes shot a Short Metric III (30/20m) and put in a solid round.
Five other archers elected to shoot a Short Metric round (50/30m). Ralf Mitchell, Eric Lutes, David Smith and Matt Elliot faced off in the Gents Recurve, while Graham Makepeace-Warne added 23 points to his pb for Gents Longbow. Eric, returning from a break, celebrated his first ever Outdoor round by winning it. Matt took second, while Ralf enjoyed his journey into third place. David Smith worked hard all afternoon and deservedly added 20 points to his pb but had to settle for fourth.
Results: Metric I – Compound – 1.R.Moore 144/1358/77/30NCR,pb, 2.D.Moore 144/1288/47/9, 3.P.Mumford 143/1273/31/13, 4.J.Gough 144/1265/40/14. Recurve -1.D.Cowin 144/1134/19/5, 2.B.Harris 142/1079/13/2, 3.D.Berry 143/1053/10/0, 4.T.Young 139/924/12/7NCR,pb, 5.P.Howland 124/678/3/0pb. Metric III – T.Ashton 141/1082/17/9NCR,pb. Metric V – L.Priestnal 144/1225/33/15. Short Metric III- J.Brookes 72/561/12/1. Short Metric – Gents Longbow -G.Makepeace-Warne 47/216/0/0pb. Gents Recurve – 1.E.Lutes 72/504/7/2pb, 2.M.Elliott 72/499/5/3, 3.R.Mitchell 56/306/2/0, 4.D.Smith 51/275/0/0pb.
Isle of Man Archery Club 