After a two-year break from anything resembling competitive archery, Graham was at the Abbey Bowmen's Wand Shoot at St Alban's today, and was absolutely in the thick of, up with all the other entrants. Rod and Graham travelled up to the shoot, the organiser has been chasing
us to go for years (we have a connection with Abbey via one of
Arundown's earliest members, Gordon Howlett), and we finally got there.
Neither of us scored, but then that was also true of the majority of
other entrants, one of the organisers has worked out that over 30,000
arrows have been shot over the past nine years, and on average only one
in 200 shot out of Longbows hit the Wand. There was a very strong wind, and it was rather cold, but we had a great time.
The Wand Shoot at Abbey was a bit unique when it started, but several other clubs have copied the format now. It's a cross between a conventional Wand shoot and a Clout, the distance is more like Clout, the Wand is the usual six feet tall but a little wider at the longest distance, and there is a 5-foot diameter circle around the Wand, and any arrows landing in the circle score 1 point, with 5 points for an arrow in the Wand.
Graham was using the 25-pound draw Character Bow, which in theory shouldn't be able to send an arrow the 140 yards to the Wand, but after one end of sighters which were perhaps 15 yards short, Graham got right on distance and stayed thereabouts to the end. At first we were helped by the wind which was angled a few degrees down the range, but after the lunch break it had moved so it was straight along the shooting line, and everybody found their arrows were going short. It looked a bit doubtful whether the 25-pounder would make the distance without some wind-assistance, but Graham made an adjustment and shot the bow at absolutely maximum range, and the arrows fell all around the wand, the furthest getting 3 or 4 yards beyond. We both had several near misses within six inches of scoring, but didn't quite get lucky enough.
The pictures are by Maggie Johnstone of Abbey (Thanks!), who has amazing timing. Click on them to see them larger-size.
1 comment:
Go Graham.. Rod updated me on what happened. It is great to see you enjoying Archery still. We have just joined our local club here in Germany. They are called bsv-toxophilus. We have our own grounds which is lucky. Currently using a school hall for winter. Unfortunately the faces at 20 yards/18m have shrunk to 40cm!
Post a Comment