The round of the day was a Vegas, shot as part of the Club’s Handicap league. There was a good turnout, but a few familiar faces were missing. Rhys Moore claimed to be doing a spot of painting but given the description of his condition on Saturday night he was probably decorating his bathroom and not in a good way.
The aim of a handicap round is to allow all archers to compete against each other irrespective of age, gender or bow type. It also allows an individual archer to gauge their form. The handicap tables are such, that if an archer shoots to their handicap they will end up with a score of 1440. More that this and they are shooting well, less than this and they have work to do.
Newcomer Caitlin Gelder recorded her first ever win, just holding off Johnathan Gordon, who isn’t used to coming second these days. Marie took the Hainge family honours, pushing Erin into fourth, with Richard down in a lowly eighth place.
Les Corran and Westy directed a steady stream of playful abuse at one another during the morning session. Les got the better of things finishing fifth overall. Westy had a bad couple of arrows to start, and while he recovered to stay in the yellow portion of the target, he consistently hit 9’s with only a smattering of 10’s. Being a man he decided that the thin arrows he had set up ahead of the outdoor season were to blame. He finished seventh. Barbara Harris had another nightmare shoot, scoring with just 45 arrows out of 60. When she good get her release right, the arrows were dead centre, but the lack of consistency ate into her score, and she counted herself lucky not to finish bottom. Pete Mumford, buoyed up by his recent victory in an international postal league competition, came sixth after the handicap was applied. Tom Rogers, who had been out with Rhys the previous evening and was feeling “a bit rough”, finished tenth. This left Emily O’Hara to bring up the rear, but she seemed to enjoy herself, nonetheless.
The Bare, Trad and Longbow enthusiasts chickened out of the Vegas, electing to shoot a Portsmouth round instead. Chris Crompton triumphed over Colin Moore in the Barebow division, taking the win be a margin of 22 points. Westy, switching to Barebow for the afternoon, put in a surprisingly good round at his first attempt to take third place ahead of Ralf Mitchell, who was too busy espousing his latest conspiracy theory (it was the evils of the banking sector this week) to concentrate on his shooting. Condolences go out from the Club to Peter Howland who had to listen to Ralf’s incessant twaddle. Stan Gorry took the Tradbow win unopposed, as did Peter Howland in the Longbow division. Joy Gough also elected to shoot the Portsmouth, just to maintain her form.
Results Vegas Handicap- 1.C.Gelder 55/1446/2, 2.J.Gordon 60/1441/29, 3.M.Hainge 60/1434/16, 4.E.Hainge 60/1430/20, 5.L.Corran 60/1429/12, 6.P.Mumford 60/1429/11, 7.A.Westmorland 60/1422/19, 8.R.Hainge 58/1407/15, 9.B.Harris 45/1405/5, 10.T.Rogers 60/1398/10, 11.E.O’Hara 53/1381/8.
Results Portsmouth Scratch: Gents Barebow- 1.C.Crompton 59/512/14, 2.C.Moore 60/490/7, 3.A.Westmorland 57/352/1, 4.R.Mitchell 59/346/0. Tradbow-S.Gorry 60/431/5. Longbow-P.Howland 55/291/3. Ladies Compound-J.Gough 60/530/6.
Isle of Man Archery Club 