The Outdoor season officially got underway at Greeba on Sunday with a WA 720 round. Conditions were less than ideal. While the rest of the island enjoyed a warm sunny day, the microclimate at the range gave the archers to heavy crosswinds heavy crosswinds which made shooting difficult and lowered the ambient temperature considerably. At another time the shoot might have been cancelled but with the Island Games heading to Orkney this year, where 16 degrees is classed as a hot day and the prevailing wind is akin to a battering ram, it was thought best to get some conditional training in at home.
The Compounds, shooting over a distance of 50m, were led as usual by Rhys Moore but with a score that was indicative of the windy weather. Andrew Westmorland suffered a miss but still managed to take second place ahead of Dave Moore who trailed in third. Lone lady Compound Aalin George kept all of her arrows on target to tie Westy’s score but lost out to him on count back of golds.
Only three archers tackled the 70m round proscribed for the Recurve, one of whom was junior Erin Hainge who has decided to step up to the senior distances this season and was shooting the round for the first time. Richard Hainge found himself battered by both the wind and Johnathan Gordon who took a decisive victory by a margin of 81 points. Erin had two more misses than her dad Richard but finished only 3 points behind him. The afternoon session saw a straight head-to-head between the father and daughter pairing and this time Erin scooped up the win. The cumulative scores of the two sessions also gave Erin overall victory, much to Richard’s chagrin.
The Records Officer, tucked up at home in bed recovering from a nasty chest infection, was relying on information relayed from ‘man on the spot’ Rhys Moore who provided her with the scores of the other archers shooting on Sunday but who neglected to mention what distances they shot. The winner of this mystery round was Chris Addy who manged to make all but two of his arrows count. Les Corran, having switched back to Recurve for the day, came second, while David Craine held off Ethan Corran to come third.
Peter Howland broke out his Longbow, which was brave of him given the conditions, and spent most of his time picking his arrows out of the grass. Ralf Mitchell faired slightly better with his Black Douglas Barebow but the efforts of both men are possibly best forgotten.
Juniors Anastacia Schnetler, Lula Brown and newcomer Emily O’Hara battled the elements in a WA30m round. All three had several misses but Emily suffered the most. Not only was this her first taste of Outdoor shooting but she was using one of the club bows which are underpowered at the best of times and Sunday was definitely not the best of times. It was close between Anastacia and Lula, but Anastacia rode out the eventual winner, with Emily bringing up the rear.
Special mention goes to Pete Mumford and Joy Gough who managed three dozen arrows before retiring from the action, but who stayed on to help the new competitive members.
Results WA720: Gents Compound- 1.R.Moore 72/658/26/5, 2.A.Westmorland 71/630/18/7, 3.D.Moore 72/625/17/4. Ladies Compound- A.George 72/630/13/7. Gents Recurve- 1.J.Gordon 71/482/5/2, 2.R.Hainge 69/401/2/0. Ladies Recurve- E.Hainge 67/398/2/0. WA Mystery Round: Gents Recurve- 1.C.Addy 70/455/7/1, 2.L.Corran 68/410/3/0, 3.D.Craine 69/394/0/0, 4.E.Corran 68/360/4/2. Gents Longbow- P.Howland 22/91/0/0. Gents Barebow- R.Mitchell 49/221/0/0. WA30m: Junior Girls- 1.A.Schnetler 66/389/3/0, 2.L.Brown 67/376/1/0, 3.E.O’Hara 55/298/3/0. Double WA720- 1.E.Hainge 124/804/4/0, 2.R.Hainge 126/801/3/0.
Isle of Man Archery Club 