After an attempt to restart the season post the Christmas break was aborted due to the snowfall of
the previous weekend, action finally resumed at Onchan on Sunday. There was a good turnout, with
sixteen archers competing across the two sessions. The round of the day was a Portsmouth 3-spot.
It came as little surprise that Rhys Moore posted the highest scratch score to take the win in the
Gents Compound division, but he was pushed all the way by Andrew (Westie) Westmorland who
came in second, just 2 points behind. The fight for the last place on the podium went to veteran Pete
Mumford courtesy of a miss by Dave Moore which resulted from his arrow coming off the stops.
Again, the margin of failure was only 2 points.
Aalin George stamped her authority on the Ladies Compound division, with an effortless victory over
Marie Hainge and Catherine Irving-Potter. Marie has been making steady progress and put in a solid
round to take second by a clear margin but Catherine, lacking practice, found the morning a grind
and was unhappy with her performance. Real life often gets in the way of archery ambition.
It was a straight head-to-head between Erin Hainge and Barbara Harris in the Ladies Recurve. Erin
(u16’s National Champion) was on song and took victory by a whopping 140-point margin. Barbara,
running late turned up to find the shoot had already started and proceedings were halted while she
put her bow together. She shot the first half of the session using arrows that were not tuned to the
bow which did her score no favours. Retrieving the correct arrows from the boot of the car at the
midsession interval, her accuracy improved but a lack of practice saw Harris struggling with fatigue
and at least one arrow each end remained un-shot. A consistent level of training is required if she is
to get back up to speed.
Johnathan Gordon continued his run of form in the Gents Recurve with a win over Richard Hainge.
Richard started well but gradually found his arrows veering more and more off centre until he finally
registered a miss. He was at a loss to account for this sudden change in form but found during an
equipment check later that the top limb pocket of his riser was loose and that was to blame rather
than anything he was doing. A new riser is currently winging its way to the island. Newcomer Radu
Lavric shot on a full-face Portsmouth as he works towards gaining his handicap.
There was only one entrant in each of the Bare, Trad and Longbow categories so each man went
home happy. Stan Gorry took the Tradbow honours but was someway below his best. Chris
Crompton put in a good performance in the Barebow, while Peter Howland put his Longbow to good
use with a solid performance in the said discipline. All three shot on a full face target.
Scratch Results: Gents Compound- 1.R.Moore 60/586/46, 2.A.Westmorland 60/584/44, 3.P.Mumford
60/558/19, 4.D.Moore 59/556/29. Ladies Compound- 1.A.George 60/570/31, 2.M.Hainge
60/549/15, 3.C.Irving-Potter 58/484/3. Ladies Recurve- 1.E.Hainge 60/549/24, 2.B.Harris 51/409/4.
Gents Recurve- 1.J.Gordon 60/576/42, 2.R.Hainge 59/539/23, R.Lavric (Full Face) 59/489/5.
Tradbow-S.Gorry 60/380/3. Barebow-C.Crompton 60/524/16. Longbow-P.Howland 57/305/2.
In addition to the normal scratch competition, Sunday was a handicap round, allowing archer to compete across the club. The results were as follows:
1 Chris Crompton 1444
2 Andrew Westmorland 1439
3 Marie Hainge 1439
4 Peter Mumford 1436
5 Johnathan Gordon 1436
6 Rhys Moore 1431
7 Radu Lavric 1431
8 Aalin George 1430
9 David Moore 1423
10 Erin Hainge 1413
11 Richard Hainge 1412
12 Catherine Irving-Potter 1407
13 Stan Gorry 1401
14 Barbra Harris 1364
15 Peter Howland 1358
Isle of Man Archery Club 