Little turbulence as winds of change favour Kowie

As expected, the prevailing north-westerly winds experienced en route from Prieska in the Northern Cape (a distance of 580-610km for coastal lofts) favoured fanciers flying their pigeons home to the Kowie area. This was noticeably the case in the Yearling race when, apart from a single country bird, heading home to King William’s Town, the first 18 positions on the sheet all went to East Cape Federation lofts.

The race was won by a yearling flown by Brendon Samuels with an average flying speed of 81.1km/h. Second and third positions went to Bruce Lord at 79.9km/h with Peter Webster picking up fourth. Webster went on to annex a further four Top-10 positions.

The King bird mentioned above trapped at the loft of Bossie Boshoff in 78.7km/h while the first EL pigeon landed at the Ristow and Jamieson loft of Northerns after covering the distance at 77.8km/h.

Yet again the Queenstown fanciers in all likelihood suffered from the effects of the ‘pull’ of the packs coastwards as their winning speed was off the pace at 74.1km/h.

The Any-age birds were released 45 minutes later and the delay favoured them as the wind freshened as the morning wore on. Here again it was the Kowie lofts who took the accolades.

The winning bird was clocked by Jean and Helen Rademeyer at 86.3km/h with second-placed bird dropping at Boeta Pieterse’s SkyTurtle Loft in 86.1km/h. These two pigeons broke away from the chasing birds, so much so that they posted a winning ‘break’ of over 15 minutes over the third pigeon home - at Morgan Ngube’s loft in 82.8km/h.

The first EL bird was registered by Alan Weimann and Stuart Sanders (Northerns) at 82km/h in ninth. On down the result sheet the dominance of the Kowie fliers was not as noticeable with a good number of EL pigeons appearing in the top-30. The country lofts again found themselves off the pace with King registering 76.4km/h, Stutterheim 76.1km/h and Queenstown posting an average speed for their first arrival of 76km/h. Saturday the pigeons head for Prieska again. Results were: Border Homing Union/Eastern Cape Pigeon Federation: Yearlings( 780 birds) – Prieska 1 B Samuel ; 2-3 and 10 Bruce Lord; 4 & 6-9 Webster Lofts. (All ECPF) BHU/ECPF: Any-Age (7434 birds) Prieska 1 JW Rademeyer (ECPF); 2 SkyTurtle Loft (ECPF); 3 Mr Pain (ECPF); 4-6 B Samuel (ECPF); 7 CF Julsing (ECPF); 8 and 10 Webster Lofts (ECPF); 9 Weimann, Sanders (NFC).

KEY: ECPF – East Cape Pigeon Federation; NFC – EL Northern Flying Club.