The Matthews brothers Scott and Jack have been achieving great things in the world of chopping. Jack writes about their recent experience competing.

On November the 6th Scott and I had a woodchopping meet in Blenheim. It was the South Island champs. This year it was decided to run the event at the beginning of the woodchopping season. 

Scott and I were not in the same heats, as there were quite a few restricted cutters, which are choppers who haven’t won an open event yet. This meant we were competing against different people instead of it always being Scott vs. me. 

We were entered in the U21 underhand event. Underhand is when you stand on top of the block and chop out the middle on both sides. After we finished our chop we decided to stay and watch how people chop and learn and then after that we all left to go to Wakefield because there was a chop there on Sunday. 

 My highest handicap that day was fifteen and Scott’s was twenty three. The restricted class at Wakefield was still quite big, but Scott won the restricted class and I got second. As Scott and I wanted to chop in as many events as we could, we also entered the Open underhand events, which is chopping against everyone. Scott and I put our names down for the big under hand, which is a 13 inch log and the small underhand is 12 inch. You had to be in the top four to finish your block to get into the final. Scott's and my handicap for the opens was three in the big underhand. I placed third in my heat which meant I was in the final! The announcer thought it was pretty neat that I had made the Open final and I am only 13. 

 Logs are ‘drawn,’ so good logs are just the luck of the draw. For the final, we looked at my block and could tell it was a bad block which means there were knots in it, which makes it hard to cut. I placed last in that race but it's always fun just doing it. 

By Jack Matthews