With the Club Championships fast approaching everyone was given the chance to get some practice in on the WA 18 that will be shot on that day. Junior Erin Hainge also elected to shoot a WA 18 though her round for the Championships will be a Portsmouth 3-spot.
The morning got off to a stuttering start as firstly, Barbara Harris took to the shooting line only to find that she hadn’t put the sight on her bow and had to halt proceedings to sort it out. Secondly, Sarah Kennedy declared an equipment failure after shooting one arrow. Both she and Pete Mumford thought she had a problem with her arrow rest which Pete tried to fix. The time it took meant that Sarah didn’t get her full allotment of sighters and went into the main shoot with the bow still behaving erratically. It wasn’t until the halfway stage that the real problem was identified – the bottom limb had not been seated correctly putting everything out of alignment. Once sorted the bow reacted properly but the damage had been done to both Sarah’s score and her confidence. To complete the trio of disasters Stan Gorry’s bow unstrung itself as he shot the last of his sighters. Fortunately, despite the noise, neither Stan, nor his bow came to any harm.
Barbara Harris had put her Hoyt back into mothballs and was employing her new bow again along with a different shooting strategy – namely to forget about the technicalities of the shot and concentrate instead on what she wanted to happen at the target. Harris still had misses, but they occurred only when she started to think about what she was doing instead of just doing it. Thanks to Sarah’s problems Barbara recorded her first victory in three weeks but more importantly she rediscovered her love of the sport.
Joy Gough and her partner Pete Mumford were back in action after going down with a nasty virus. Both declared themselves to be ‘recovering’ but clearly found the shoot to be something of an effort. Joy made it through the morning without any misses but her shoulders were aching by the end of the day.
Pete took on Chris Crompton in the Barebow division and put up quite a challenge. They had two misses a-piece, but Chris was fractionally more consistent and took the win by 6 points.
Things were a lot more one-sided in the Gents Compound where Rhys Moore triumphed yet again. Rhys finished 20 points ahead of his nearest rival David Moore, who in turn finished 17 ahead of third placed Andrew Westmorland, while John Angiolini had to settle for fourth.
Stan Gorry had the Tradbow division all to himself. He seemed in much better form, made all his arrows count but was frustrated by the handful of poor shots he had which dented his score.
Danny Cowin was in action once again and looking somewhat more focused. His action was smoother and his arrows were grouping, though of course he growled and huffed his way through the morning in typical Danny fashion.
Ering Hainge and Nathan Kinrade were the only juniors who turned up. Erin felt ‘strange’ not having shot for so long (about a week and half actually) but she was very consistent until the last 6 arrows where she appeared to tire a little.
Results: WA 18 3/s – Ladies Recurve- 1.B.Harris 54/454/11, 2.S.Kennedy 54/423/1. Ladies Compound- J.Gough 60/526/8. Gents Compound- 1.R.Moore 60/575/35, 2.D.Moore 60/555/20, 3.A.Westmorland 60/538/8, 4.J.Angiolini 60/526/9. WA 18 (Single) – Barebow- 1.C.Crompton 58/399/5, 2.P.Mumford 58/393/1. Gents Recurve- D.Cowin 60/495/5. Tradbow- S.Gorry 60/384/4. U14’s- E.Hainge 60/456/8. U18’s N.Kinrade 60/485/11.
Isle of Man Archery Club 