17 July 2007

This is a long one, well we were away for 10 days!!!
I've brought it up into chapters. I hope it works

What an amazing place, the scenery, when not immersed in cloud is truly spectacular; the people are fantastic and the food…. Did I mention the scenery and people? Maybe a little unfair but bread-crumbed and deep fried everything doesn’t really do it for me.

We had a wonderful journey to Switzerland, 3hrs 30m from Burton to Dover, allowing us to catch an earlier ferry, we then made excellent progress to our stop over in Metz (my uncle’s house), seeing us there 3 ½ hours ahead of schedule. We crashed out for a few hours before setting off for the nearest CORA (anyone who hasn’t visited a CORA in France must make the effort, it is a shoppers paradise, we wandered around and managed to spend 1.50 Euro. Still we lined up a few choice bargains for our return. The next day we set off for Nesslau in Switzerland and again we made excellent progress, covering the 550km in @ 5 hours. Every corner presented a more fantastic vista, and we stopped for a few photos.

Our hosts greeted us and made us feel instantly at home. We dropped our things off and took a run into Wildhaus to check out the lay of the land. The first taste of Swiss organisation was that the bosses would be open for 2 2hour sessions on the Saturday, one 3 hour session on the Sunday and for a morning and an evening 2 hour session for the remainder of the competitive days. With @ 30 bosses for nearly 1000 archers, this was clearly insufficient. Fortunately a good friend of ours from the Netherlands informed that he had located at practise ground in Lichtenstein, just an hour away. This ground had 20 3d targets and was certainly a better prospect for our efforts. With that, Ruthy and I, with Dusty Miller and John Bloomfield set off following Rense and Stefan to the mountains.
The course was at 1600m and Dusty’s hire car clearly didn’t like the altitude and at one point came to a grinding halt. With Rense using some spirited driving techniques, more commonly associated with a special stage, the drive there was eventful and breathtaking. The course was owned by the proprietors of the local café and we indulged in a “cordon bleu” (something deep fried in breadcrumbs but with ham and cheese for variety) before embarking up the hill to the first target. It was at this point Johnny B decided his white trainers and best trackie bottoms were less than suitable for a mountainous 3d course (quite why he thought they were, wasn’t actually discussed but I offered my trainers and Stefan offered a pair of spats to enable the Veteran European & World champion to shoot. He later walked the mountain twice as he left his rucksack at the 5th target, this went un-noticed until the 17th one!
The course was challenging, we were shooting one shot but everyone managed to miss a target at some point but a good time was had by all.
We descended the mountain back to Switzerland in better time than we climbed it.

On the Sunday, we attempted to practise but aborted this after shooting 18 arrows in 30 minutes as the predicted melee was realised. With nothing to gain we went back to the B&B before returning to Wildhaus for the opening ceremony. This consisted of lots of speeches in different languages and the a long walk to the top of the town before parading down the high street behind a red Indian, loads of blokes with cowbells and a horse and cart. Still we had fun??

The Monday came along with the rain, not just rain, but alpine rain, it was like sitting in a bath with the shower on. With no point practising, we waited inside until it was time to walk out. The walk out involved a chair lift ride, which was no where near as bad as I had imagined and the around a mile and a half further up the mountain. I was grouped with 3 Swiss, 1 Hungarian and an Italian. I was second to shoot, the target was an easy group 3 boar at no more than 20m. The Italian shot first, and managed a good 18 (outer kill). I offered up convinced that the 20 was on the cards. I shot, and heard nothing. I looked in the target and clearly my arrow wasn’t there. I looked to the rest of the group and they indicated the ground about 8 metres in front of me. As it was a one shot round, that was my turn over but I could not understand what had occurred. I checked the markings on the bow and straight away it was obvious that the timing had slipped drastically. I couldn’t see the reason why as it was too dark in the wood. Obviously I couldn’t shoot the bow in this condition and arranged to retire from the group in an attempt to fix my equipment as allowed in the rules of the competition, although I had a bow press at the car, spares strings and a host of tools, in reality the 40 minutes allowed was insufficient to get down the mountain, let alone repair anything. As I got out of the trees, the problem became apparent, the bottom limb had delaminated. I cursed my luck and made my way to administration, with only one thought in my mind, getting another bow to shoot tomorrow.

I arrived back in admin and Steve Kendrick was sat there, he knew of no one available with a left handed bow to spare, neither did I for that matter but I asked him if there was anywhere I could buy a new bow within driving distance. He went off to make some phone calls and returned 10 minutes later. He had got hold of the mobile number for Paul Strebel, well respected pro shop owner in Luzerne. Although normally closed, Steve had arranged with Paul to meet me there and open the shop. With the address punched into satnav, I set off in some of the most appalling driving conditions I have experienced with 2 hours and 160km in front of me. I was worried that Ruthy would return, find me gone and as she hadn’t taken her phone onto the course, she wouldn’t know what was happening, so I have to admit, I did not hang about.
True to his word, Paul was waiting for me, he had already pulled out all the left handed bows in stock, all HOYT, not my first choice but since I had no choice, I picked out the Trykon. It had the same AtoA, the same draw length and the same poundage, so all in all it would be the easiest to acclimatise to quickly. Paul set about the bow, he did it with such ease, it was easy to assume he wasn’t taking any care. He normally doesn’t prepare bows as he employs 3 full time technicians and so I was a little uneasy but, I shot a dozen off on his indoor range and they were clattering nocks. The bow felt ok, not as positive on the stops as the XS but the Draw force curve was pleasant enough and there was less hand shock. The bow felt very soft, almost twangy, which made it feel slow. I asked Paul what speed he thought I might expect, he guessed at 290fps, I thought this was a little flattering but without daring to take any more time, I paid the money, collected a free HOYT hat and was on my way, in the seemingly ceaselessly appalling weather. I arrived back at Wildhaus at 1600. To my relief Ruthy was still up an Alp and the practise bosses were due to open at 1630. Steve arranged with the Swiss organisers for me to have a boss to myself to set the bow up. They understood that I was going to do a walk back and were ok with it. In the end, only a few archers were waiting to practise and claiming a boss wasn’t a problem. I shot 12 off just to settle everything in and then performed a walkback. The result required 1/6th of a turn on the horizontal movement to correct. I reset my 20 yd mark and moved onto a 35yd target. To my surprise, the 35yd mark matched almost perfectly. I shot a 60 yard target and again the mark was extremely close to good enough. The group at 60 was about 6” in diameter, but mostly in a left right line, I dropped the rest 1/12th of a turn and the group went circular. It was hard to believe that Paul Strebel had set the bow up THAT close by eye alone, no wonder he is respected. I got a definite 20yard mark and with the minor alteration to the rest, the 60 was in line. I checked a few random distances and was satisfied that the marks would work. The last hurdle was getting the bow re scrutineered and stickered up by the officials, again Steve Kendrick pushed the official, to put the wine glass down and pick the chronograph up. 291 291 290, again I was surprised at how accurate Paul Strebel had been. At 290, the HOYT was only shooting 6 fps slower than the XS straight out of the box.

Day 2 saw me seeded in the last group. With an aggregate score of 0 this was hardly surprising. I was with 5 Swiss archers and we found ourselves at the furthermost point of the course (punishment for being rubbish I suppose). When I gave an account of my previous day’s experiences, apart from sympathy for the breakage, there was, I can only describe as a reverence for the fact that Paul Strebel had set the bow up, to the point where other Swiss archers came up just to confirm the fact. The course was hard, nearly every shot was either steep up or steep down the mountain. A lot of shots were in the open, something I’m not particularly good at judging. So I largely based my judgement on visualising the Merlin practise range, where we shoot a short metric so I had a good image of 30m and 50m and the IFAA group ruling helped quite a bit in narrowing down a decision. I got off to a good start, the first target was a pleasant 35yarder and being a 2 shot round I scored an 18 (each arrow counts 10, 8, 5 ; inner kill, kill, wound). This theme continued throughout the day with minor adjustments as things stretched in. I was just so happy to be out there, experiencing the course and the competition that the score was largely irrelevant, however it was good to be scoring reasonably and gave some vindication for being out there. I came down the mountain so pleased, I felt almost euphoric!

Day 3. Again we were placed at the far end of the course, the group had altered slightly with one archers promoted to the group above and one relegated into ours. After my success the previous day, I had moved up to the 5th shooter. The rain continued blighting up once again with poor visibility, the conditions underfoot were also deteriorating and the decision to place a number of targets in culverts seemed poorly judged as we had to recover arrows from targets that were now situated in streams of fast flowing water. Today we were shooting paper with big game scoring 20 18, 16 14, 12 10, so large gains could not be expected. I was 110 points behind my nearest competitor. Although 110 points was too much to overhaul, there was no harm in trying. The first target was a group 1, although placed at the near end of the 40 -60 yard range. I hit low and scored an 18. The second target was a group 4 at no more than 15 yards, this time I hit low and required a second arrow, definitely something was amiss. I checked the bow, the cams were slightly out of line but nothing anywhere near serious enough to cause the miss. I noticed that the nocking point was high, a borrowed t square showed that the point was now 5 mm further up the string, than where it had started. I took an equipment break to reset it. Not so easy in poor light, bereft of my glasses and with cold and wet hands but everyone stayed in good humour until it was completed. I took three at the next target, although I had made the second count, just to get a fix on where my marks had moved to, unfortunately I had run out of adjustment on the sight pointer and had to use the sight arm, minus 3.5 yards. 2 more targets confirmed that the mark was holding and business as usual recommenced. This held good for 20 or so targets, with only a minor prod or two to get things back in line. At the end of the day, I had again won the group and taken 90 points out of the 110 deficit. It certainly felt good!
That night we sat in the local pizzeria (no more schnitzel for me thanks) reading the texts form Dawn, it felt good to hear all the well wishes from the forum. I really can’t say how proud it made us feel to be doing it for Archers Rest. Ruthy was holding a steady 3rd place despite a horrendous chest infection, that was keeping her up most of the night, she had pegged back the point gap of the two ladies leading the field. It has been a sharp learning curve for Ruthy as she didn’t gel with Unlimited at all last year. The change to Merlin and the help that Chris and Ben have given has helped her no end but no amount of help and advice prepares you for the focus and execution required at that level. That is something you have to experience for yourself. She was rising to the challenge in her usual style.

Day 4, was also a paper, big game round and provided the most hostile shooting conditions I have ever experienced. The trek to the course found us climb the mountain to 50m below the chair lift station. A mode of transport excluded to us on that day, with disqualification the punishment for contravention of the rule. We had a further 1 mile walk and I barely made it to the target before the 0945 start. I was exhausted and of course, the weather was foul. I was target captain for the day although 3 of the shooters failed to show up, can’t say I blame them, shooting in those conditions, purely for pride did seem a bit daft, it was different for me, I was on a mission!
The first target was a nasty group 2 set out at a maximum 45 yards, steeply angled. I scraped an 18, Herbert, 20’d the beast. I 20’d the next and he 18’d and that set out the stall for the next 6 targets. We then slithered down the mountain for 500 metres, it was too dangerous to try and lift your feet. 8 targets had been removed from this section, deemed too dangerous to shoot. I would have seriously question the remaining 20 to be honest. The course was a sea of mud generated by 1000 people and a week of rain, Glastonbury, ha!, Wildhaus could teach them a trick or two!. The 8 targets had been set out in the open and the wind and rain had turned to an almost sleet like consistency, just 200 metres above us on the one shot course, snow was falling. The wind was driving the rain horizontally. My hands had turned blue but I wasn’t aware of this until John Bloomfield pointed out that his hands were blue. I was faced with a group4 at no more than 18yards. The first arrow, missed 6” low, the second 12” right, such were the conditions, it was impossible to aim. I got a line cutter wound on the third arrow and gratefully took 10 points. Herbert took the peg and planted a 20. I was gutted, a 4 point lead had turned into a 6 point deficit. The margin stayed around 6 points until 6 targets from the end. A noticeable harshness had appeared in the shot and the stops were very spongy, a check on the timing showed that it had slipped. With only 6 targets left, there was little I could do. Still, I counted my blessings for being there and at the same time got a little wound up for not being in a position to win the group for a third day. It all became academic, when the cord on my waterproof hood, became firmly trapped around the string, garrotted me and pulled my arrow left on a 50 yarder, dropping me to a 16, against Herbert’s 20 and then on the next target, my string went down my bracer causing a successive 16. I finished on 18’s for the remaining 4 targets against a raft of 20’s, finishing 20 points behind. Ruthy said I looked angry as I returned but although I was disappointed, with the way I had finished the competition, I wasn’t angry, I had, after all, finished. I was shooting a bow that had seen less than 200 arrows and had to accept that things would move. I just wished they had moved 6 shots later. Nevermind. !! A check on the scores showed that Herbert was a long way behind me on aggregate, after failing to complete the previous day ( I later found out he had broken his stabliser) and when the results had come in, I had achieved my goal of moving up another place by beating the next in line by 40ish points.
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