Numbers were still rather low at Greeba for the second week of the Outdoor season. The round of
the day was a WA720 – 72 arrows at a distance of 70m for the Recurves and 50m for the
Compounds. The sun was shining and it was warm to begin with, but an icy crosswind made itself
felt after the first hour which chilled the archers and pushed the arrows to the left.
In the Gents Compound division Andrew (Westy) Westmoreland had it all his own way in a straight
head-to head with Les Corran. Westy took his first win of the season by a clear 59 points and
although Les did not help himself by having a miss, he was never close enough for it to have made a
difference. Lone Lady Compound Marie Hainge put a couple of arrows wide of the target in what
was an otherwise solid round.
The Gents Recurve provided the largest field of the day with Tom Rogers, David Craine, Richard
Hainge and Johnathan Gordon on the shooting line. Johnathan made light work of the blustery
conditions taking the win 75 points ahead of his nearest rival Tom. Tom was a little rusty to start
with having not touched his bow for six weeks. Hampered somewhat in the early stages, he forgot
how his sight worked, he struggled until he remembered how to adjust the windage. Once dialled in
his scores rose dramatically but the damage had been done, and he had to settle for second place.
Richard never quite got into his stride on Sunday. While the conditions certainly didn’t help, his
shooting was erratic, four arrows centred followed up by a couple going into the outer low value
rings every end put a dent in his score. A miss late on did not help and Richard found himself down
in third. David Craine had, what can only be described as a “bad day at the office”, a host of misses
put him out of contention, and he finished well off the pace in fourth.
Erin Hainge started the day with Barbara Harris as a boss companion. Erin battled the conditions
which consistently pushed her arrows to the left, to post a score that was not quite as high as the pb
she shot the previous week but was nevertheless still a qualification score for the Island Games
coming up next year. Erin just needs to post a bowman score for a full WA1440 and she will have
completed the three rounds necessary to make the team going to the Faroes. Barbara on the other
hand turned up late after only getting a couple of hours sleep and really should not have turned up
at all. Still working on the indoor start times, she arrived just before the shoot was due to start, put
her limbs on the wrong way up, which sent her first 6 sighter arrows into the grass, and had blurred
vision due to a lack of coffee. She did her best and there was the odd flash of her old form but with
three ends left to go she simply ran out of steam and was unable to finish the round. Emily O’Hara
elected to shoot a 50m round in the afternoon session. She made every arrow count but the centre
of the target eluded her.
Peter Howland had the Longbow division all to himself. The crosswind played havoc with his light
wooden arrows, and his score was consequently not up to his usual standard.
Results WA 720: Gents Compound- 1.A.Westmorland 72/662/35, 2.L.Corran 71/603/12. Ladies
Compound- M.Hainge 70/534/9. Ladies Recurve- E.Hainge 71/518/8. Gents Recurve- 1.J.Gordon
72/590/15, 2.T.Rogers 72/515/6, 3.R.Hainge 71/485/6, 4.D.Craine 61/339/1. 50m Round: Gents
Longbow- P.Howland 35/147/1. Ladies Recurve- E.O’Hara 72/433/0.
Isle of Man Archery Club 