Winter 2002 - National Rifle Association

Wales but much warmer. At 300 yards John Carmichaelwon with 35.6, followed by Hugh Kilpatrick with 35.6and Jose Nunez of Jamaica with 35.5. The 500 yardscompetition was won by Oscar Waldron of Trinidadwith 50.7, followed by Ronald Brown Jr of Jamaica with50.6. Hugh crowned two weeks of consistent shootingwith 50.10 at 600 yards, followed by John with 50.8 andPeter Barry with 50.7. On the day, Hugh led the waywith 134.23, narrowly ahead of the Vice Captain with134.22, followed by Peter with 134.14.Wednesday 15 MayThis was the sort of day that rifle shooters dream about;dry with blue sky and sea, a fresh breeze, changingenough to keep a shooter interested, and the temperaturejust around 30 o C. Keith Hammond of Jamaica won the300 yards shoot with 50.7, followed by LennoxBrathwaite of Guyana with 50.6 and Jim Scobie with 50.5.At 600 yards Ronald Brown Jr of Jamaica led the fieldwith 35.7, Peter Barry and Andrew Tompson followinghot on his heels with 35.6. At 900 yards David Dysonscored the only possible winning the shoot with 50.7;next were Hugh Kilpatrick and Ransford Goodluck ofGuyana with 49.7 each. On the day, David Rickman ofJamaica emerged on top with 132.20, Ronald Brown Jrsecond with 132,19 and Peter Barry third with 132.17.This left Peter in a clear lead in the Grand Aggregate,having dropped four over the first six shoots.Thursday 16 MayAnother glorious Barbadian morning dawned. At 500yards, shooting into what had now developed into abuffeting headwind, the top three scorers, all with 35.5,were Paul Charlton, Nigel Penn and Sally Roots. In theGrand Aggregate, Hugh Kilpatrick closed the gap onPeter Barry to one point. At 600 yards Gary Alexander(50.7) beat Stephen Chung of Trinidad (50.5) into secondplace, John Carmichael coming third with 49.7. TheCaptain, at this stage keen to publicise his own muchimproved elevations, and having initially andinadvertently omitted to bring his rifle to the mound,eventually scored a creditable 48. Peter, meanwhile, heldon to his one point overall lead over Hugh, with Johnmoving into third place, a further point behind.In the final competition, at 1,000 yards, the winner wasPaul with 49.6 (also winning the day’s aggregate), StevenThomas coming second with 48.6, and Leo Ramalho ofGuyana third with 47.7. Peter, with a steady 47 at 1,000yards, extended his lead to win the Grand Aggregate bytwo points from John, Hugh coming third with fewer Vbulls.Friday 17 MayThe match was to be shot by teams of 16, ten shots at300, 600 and 900 yards, with the scores of the best eightcounting towards the result. This required meticulousplanning by the Captain, to ensure that all shooters couldbe coached and have plotters.Match day had dawned with red flags out on the beach,signifying hazardous conditions for bathing due to bigseas arising from the continuing high wind. On therange, conditions resembled yesterday’s except that the30wind was stronger. At 300 yards many were undone bythe buffeting, which also caused problems at 600 yards,although Sarah Rennie, coached by Peter Barry, alongwith Mahendra Persaud and Ransford Goodluck of thehost team, managed scores of 99 at the first two ranges.Due to the unusual match rules it was impossible toknow who was in the lead, but at lunch there seemedlittle to separate the two teams. At 900 yards, GB, takingadvantage of reduced buffeting to shoot more quicklythan the hosts, appeared to be setting up a significantlead. However, by the time the statisticians hadcalculated the scores of the best eight, the GB winningmargin was a mere three points, our score being 1157.126against the West Indies 1154.115. This had been thetightest margin between the two teams for many yearsand the closeness of the scores implied that the ruleshad brought about an exciting contest. Top individualscorer for GB was David Dyson with 147.19, coached byDick Winney, and with the same score for the WestIndies, Ransford Goodluck.After a brief visit to the now derelict supergun test sitebehind the butts, the bus took the team back to the hotelin time for some to enjoy an exhilarating plunge in thesurf.Saturday 18 MayToday’s shoot was for teams of eight from eachCaribbean country, shooting 15 shots at 900 and 1000yards. GB was not eligible to enter, but our 12 shootersshot alongside for honour ( - and for a side bet madebetween Captain Martin and Norris Gomez). Each hadnominated eight shooters from across the various teamsto create a concurrent GB versus West Indies match, thelosers buying the winners a case of cold beer. This wasa hidden match, the eventual participants not knowingwho they were, in order to extract the best efforts of alltwelve GB shooters. Confused?Shooting, for the third successive day, into a strongbuffeting headwind, scores of 73 were achieved at 900yards by Peter Barry and Sarah Rennie, both coachedby the Captain. After lunch at 1000 yards, with no letup to the wind, Peter scored a superb 74 to complete a147, by far the highest individual gun score of the day.It was noticeable that David Dyson and Peter Thompson,the only two point sling users in the team, had bothfeatured strongly amongst the better GB scores over thelast two buffeting days. The Singer Cup was won byGuyana with 1111.93 and, in the hidden internationalmatch, GB won the beer with 1123.108 against the WestIndies 1102.88.Saturday night was a quiet one for most of the team,tired after six consecutive days on the range. A smallnumber of stalwarts did however manage an after dinnerforay to the Ship Inn, local pub/club where the Saturdaynight performance of salsa, and a variety of Caribbeandances, were especially pleasing.Sunday 19 MayFollowing a shower of rain, the BWIA Cup got underwayin the same buffeting wind as that experienced on thethree previous days. This trophy is competed for