NZ Palma Report 9
Today’s Report comes from The Kevin, Jan, Ross, Paul and Steve Camp.
Today saw the America Match shot here at camp Perry. New Zealand kept the squads together for the day and Kevin and Richard’s squads were the 8 person team that competed in the America match while Owens and Anita’s shot the 4 person Presidents Match. Conditions were a complete repeat of yesterdays easterly with the 8 minute maxed out flags being extremely difficult to read when the drop-offs occurred. New Zealand finished 6th. The Brits are out to make a statement this year so it seems and began the day at 300yds with all shooters clean. Over the day they managed to have all their shooters better than 296/300 with 2x300 and 2x299.
New Zealand’s best was Brian Carter finishing strongly with 299. So going through the list we saw the following for the kiwis: Irene Cameron 288, Casey Goldsmith 282, Rob Johansen 291, Chris Kershaw 294, Jonno Phillipps 293, Grace Reeves 289 and Allan White 295.
Great Britain 2385.263
Australia 2374.255
South Africa 2353.225
USA 2347.255
Canada 2338.209
New Zealand 2331.230
Germany 2251.167
West Indies 2233/161
Team Barbados 1888.79
Japan 1837.84
The Presidents managed to finish 10th and 11th with close scoring between them Team A , Anita’s team, pipping Team B (Owens’) by 5 points. In NZA Andre Doyle 294, Helen Freiman 292, Amy Hatcher 293 William Van Asch 293. In NZB Stephen Livingstone 292, Ross Mason 291, John Snowden 294, Paul Tidswell 290.
The opening to the Long Range Individual World Championship opens tomorrow with the flag waving ceremony tomorrow morning. Charlotte Flanagan and John McLaren are the flag beares for the day. We are expecting a good Ra Ra USA shindig that apparently include skydivers. The afternoon sees the first 800 match and the Palma Dinner in the evening.
Family wise it is great to see the travel effects and sickness that laid a few out cold last week finally being overcome. Folk look like they are enjoying the weather after a solid week of acclimatising to the heat. We certainly hit a week of unhealthy hot weather last week!!! The ice cream shop with “51 Wonderful Flavours” is taking a hammering on the way home from the range. The third BBQ was organised the day before last continues to be entertaining. The tandem bikes came out in our cul de sac and robust racing ensued.
We will make sure that the regular morning entertainment of “Colors” (no “u”) and “Blowing Off” will be included in any highlight package we finally gather together of the trip. Each day a canon goes off and the Star Spangled Banner is played over the speaker. All hands stand to and face the drifting smoke until the last bar is played. The Blow Off is a cacophony of noise as 300+ shooters stand with their rifle and up to 4 rounds and are allowed to blast the hell out of the numbers under the targets in about 30 seconds. Many movies have been made of the events so you won’t miss a thing!!
