The weather was against the archers yet again on Sunday, this time it was the wind. The forecast was grim for Greeba, gale force 6 winds from the west scheduled to worsen from 10am and rain coming in at 1pm.
Temperatures were in the low teens with wind chill making it feel much cooler. It looked as though another shoot would have to be cancelled but a field inspection at 9:30 found that conditions on the range were not too bad. The extreme left side of the field was relatively sheltered, and the wind was gusting rather than constant which meant arrows could be loosed between gusts. The sky was overcast, and it was chilly, but everyone had shot in worse and the decision was taken to go ahead. The Records Officer had hoped to stage either a full day WA 1440 round, or, at least, a Long Metric (90 & 70m for the Gents/70 and 60m for the Ladies) but in the end had to settle for a Short Metric (50 & 30m). The afternoon session was cancelled outright.
Only six archers braved the challenge of the wind: Joy Gough, Pete Mumford, Danny Cowin, Rhys Moore, Barbara Harris and Dave Moore. Billy Lightfoot resolutely refused to budge from his bolt hole in Port St Mary. The wind certainly influenced things with Dave Moore, Joy Gough and Danny Cowin all having misses at the 50m distance. However, the skies cleared almost immediately, and the mixture of sunshine and banter made for an enjoyable morning’s shoot. Rhys Moore led from start to finish in the Gents Compound, while Pete Mumford’s relaxed style secured second place well ahead of Dave Moore who could not wait for the shoot to be over. At one point, Dave was so keen that he started down the range to collect his arrows before the second line had a chance to shoot, much to the amusement of everyone else. Joy Gough just couldn’t get into a rhythm and felt she was over aiming but still managed to break 600 for the round.
Danny Cowin, disgusted with his miss at 50m, nevertheless maintained his focus and shot a season’s best score -no mean feat with the twin handicap of the wind and Barbara Harris’s constant heckling. Harris herself struggled to focus. No lover of the sun and unable to wear her trademark reverse baseball cap because of the wind, Barbara ended up with a sunburnt neck and a thumping headache. She was so out of it that when Dave Moore made a crack about her being “Robina Hood”, Barbara stopped shooting and looked behind her to see who he was talking about. Her score was some 20 points down on her seasons best but was still the highest Recurve score of the day.
Short Metric Results: Gents Compound – 1.R.Moore 72/668/33/15, 2.P.Mumford 72/656/29/11, 3.D.Moore 71/624/16/6. Ladies Compound – J.Gough 71/606/29/11. Gents Recurve – D.Cowin 71/516/7/2 sb. Ladies Recurve – B.Harris 72/556/12/4.
Isle of Man Archery Club 