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May 2010 - Bordeaux France
Adam Mclaughlin popped over to our French friends excellent tournament in Bordeaux. The event was very well run by Michel Appriou, but unfortunately he could do nothing about the weather which was extremely windy. Most events had at least 10 mph winds with gusts much more. Everyone found it very challenging. On friday the Tournament started with MTA unlimited and LD. Newcomer Nicolas Ferrieux astonished everyone by lobbing an LD boomerang out 140m, I don't think he realized just what a feat this was. He did pretty well in the main event as well!
Thanks to Michel and our French friends for a great time.
Adam put in a sterling effort to finish in 4th position, the top 3 going to Richard Bowers, Arnaud Tribbilon and Daniel Bowers.
Results below.
A photo of Bordeaux looking deceptively calm. It wasn't.
September 2009 - New British Trick catch record
Jay Butters put in a sterling performance during beautiful weather conditions at the 2009 Iron Man Competition held in Birmingham. Using a Nico insider and his own outsider Jay showed us all that being a veteran doesn't mean records can't be broken.
Jay dropped one catch to get a tremendous 98 points, which is as close as you can get without getting a perfect round. The catch dropped - left hand clean.
Quite a few of these catches were captured at 250 frames a sec video, which will be uploaded in due course.
Nice one Jay !
See the videos tab for a great film of Jay setting this record !
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Google Earth catches Shrewsbury circles
This made us smile. Shortly after Shrewsbury 2008, the satellite took this picture. Couldn't quite beat Jens actually getting caught in his circle but its close enough !
August 2009 - New British MTA record
In an unexpected calm end to a very difficult day at Trefriw 17 throwers had a great session of MTA. Conditions were really nice for some great times. Mark Holman-Lisney after first dropping a 41 sec MTA followed by a 1 min 4 sec that drifted outside the 100m, then threw a huge 57 secs for a well deserved win and new British record. The boomerang used was a Manu carbon fibre MTA for all the throws.
Jens also threw a New Danish Record of 40.59 seconds. In all there were 6 times over 30 seconds which is pretty damn good. When a 33.07 secs by Robbie Russ places him 6th, that says something about the high standard.
Immediately after the event, Adam threw one of his Carbon MTA's which lazily drifted along for a catch just 30m from launch and a time of 1 minute 21 secs.
Mark swears by his new technique of launching. He says - "This is announcing the arrival of the Lisney Loop Back. This is a bit like a Fosbury Flop of MTA Boomerang Throwing. Prior to Dick Fosbury all high jumpers approached the high jump bar and tried to clear the bar stomach first. The jumps were the straddle and some other style I can’t remember the name of. Then Dick Fosbury broke all the records by approaching the bar from a different angle and flopping over the bar backwards. Hence the Fosbury Flop. In MTA throwing we are all taught (if we are right-handers) to throw the boomerang to the right of the oncoming wind (one or two o’clock), and often as high as possible (70/80 degrees). The tendency with the manufactured carbon fibre booms has been to throw closer to the wind, and with a negative laid over angle which makes it more difficult to get power into the throw. What I have discovered, I think, is that if you throw across a light wind (at about 10.30 or 11 o’clock), and throw almost horizontal to the horizon or even slightly down, with a vertical boom (no layover)…..you can achieve more height and stability and therefore longer times. What seems to happen is the boom hits a point on the outward trajectory where the lift within the boomerang takes over violently, and the boomerang shoots upwards vertically very quickly. When the upward trajectory starts to lessen, the boomerang starts to lay over, but does so (critically) at an angle where it is laying over into the wind. This makes the boomerang enter into a tight spiral for the last part of its upward flight and then stabilise. The critical difference between MTA flights with highly vertical flights that stabilise and those that don’t, seems to be the angle to the wind that is prevalent when they start to loose upward momentum and start to layover. If the boomerang starts to layover as it is going into the wind, the boomerang will lift in a tight spiral and stabilise. If it starts to layover with the wind coming from behind the boomerang goes into a stall and the characteristic death spiral ensues. Therefore by throwing across the wind you are able to take advantage of the fact that by the time the boomerang is coming out of its upward trajectory, it is facing into the wind and will stabilise. This is also what happens when you throw with a negative layover to the right of the wind,….. but when you throw with a negative layover you cannot get as much power into the throw as when you throw across the wind. This throw is what I have previously referred to as the ‘bounce throw’ as the boomerang appears to bounce upwards from a low point in the throw. I have only tried this with carbon fibre booms and I am not sure what would happen with other MTA’s. I have tried in low to medium winds and can get it to stabilise 9 times out of 10. The other night I compared this to normal throws of the same boomerang, and was consistently getting higher throws and better times using the Loop Back." So there you go, no arguing about Marks results!
Oct 2008 - Viareggio - Italy
Viareggio - Has the envieable reputation for having dreamy weather conditions - and again didn't disappoint this year. 4 Brits competed - Jay and Gill Butters, Martin Laslett, and Rob Russ, the most UK turnout for this event.
In all 39 competitors threw, and the now familiar top 3 took podium positions - namely Manu Schuetz, Frido Frost, and Alex Opri.
How did the brits do? well Martin threw a fab 91 in accuracy to take a new British record, but this amazing score was still only good enough for 6th on the beach.
Between the 4 throwers, an incredible 9 personal bests were thrown! Sigh.... You Italians need to come over here and throw in some proper weather. Perfect conditions is for girls.
All in all some excellent scores were obtained, see below for the overalls.
Sept 2008 - Iron Man
The Annual autumn tournament, bought the best throwing conditions seen at a UK event for about 10 years. In other words, it was a beautiful cloudless day, complete with light winds.
However the scores didn't reflect this in all areas. Possible excuses we managed to find, were - " The grass was growing in the wrong way" and " The wind was tricky ".
11 competitors kicked off, completing 3 rounds of fast catch, and in the end running out of time for the famous 'Iron Man event' (rules dictate that after 18:15, if the event hasn't been started, then we don't do it.)
Last years winner - Adam McLaughlin - was unable to defend his title due to injury, so Mark Holman-Lisney for the second time struggles to lift triumphantly the 10kg lead and stone trophy.
See here for results and pictures.
July 2008 - Virtual Tournament
25-27th July sees another chance to participate in a virtual tournament. Jay and Gill Butters throw in nice conditions in Wales, and Ollie Snook and Adam have a similar chance in Hertfordshire.
Both throw in very nice conditions, see below for scores.
The virtual tournament is a great way of competing in an event without any of the travelling to get there. Only 4 events are contested due to the difficulty of scoring Aussie Round and MTA on your own. Great fun.
Great resut for Jay and Ollie ! and Gill too. I wonder what are the chances of perfect weather again?
Next virtual is 12/13/14th Sept.
Ollie and Adam 26th July 2008
May 2008
How about that for accuracy !
Ollie and Adam were having an accuracy battle when the following happened !
Adam threw first, and the boomerang landed on the orange bottle being used for a marker. Ollie was about to concede the point, but at the last moment decided to throw anyway.
See picture below for result !
29th March 2008
Virtual Tournament 2008 Dates
Several of us had an absolute blast year year (See below 13th October), trying this format. If you haven't had a go, we highly recommend it.
Dates start in April, and are listed below.
Virtual Tournament (VT) 2008
Click here for a PDF detailing what to do.
25th November 2007
Martin and Adam and their families took a trip to Wales, to visit Jay and Gill Butters, which involved an inevitable bit of booming on the local school field. The 3 of us threw head to head accuracy, followed by Aussie round, which Martin seemed to win - probably because he made the rules up as he went along. It was great fun though, and we had to stop at 4:30 because it was getting so dark, we couldn't actually see the boomerangs.
The weather was completely overcast, but oddly, no wind, or at least very little. I was hoping to post a great MTA flight here, but unfortunately in the heat of the moment, my phone was on camera, rather than video mode.
Martin had given me his Carbon MTA to throw. It was a very ordinary start, then suddenly and dramatically it shot upwards, doubling its height in a few seconds. It was going out of the field.... Then as these things turn out, it then completely changed direction, coming back over the field, and descending. I caught it about 20m from launch - time 1 minute 24 seconds.
We love MTA stories - if you have any to share then please let us know...
Two boomerang throwing world records were set over the past weekend at the Beach Boomerang Tournament in Viareggio, Italy. Initially, the current World Champion, German Fridolin Frost, extended his own Aussie Round world record from 96 to 99 points (out of 100). Shortly afterwards, his fellow countryman Alex Opri followed his lead by equalling the Accuracy record of 99 points (out of 100). Alex now shares that record with another two German throwers, HG Hoffmann and Thomas Szartowicz. Coincidentally, all three of these previous records were set at the same Swiss tournament in 2005. Despite their obvious form, both were still easily beaten in the overall scoring by a masterful performance by Swiss star Manuel Schütz. Manu scored 95 in the Accuracy and Aussie Round competitions, completed Fast catch in 15.78 seconds, took an arguably disappointing (!) 68 catches during Endurance, kept his MTA aloft for 43.39 seconds, and also scored 379 in Trick Catch/Doubling (the second highest score ever, and just behind his own record of 390).
13th October 2007
7 Brits try out Virtual Tourno
A relatively new thing in the world of boomerang tourno's. Dates are posted, normally 3 days - and everyone who wants to try, has to commit to these days - any will do.
Hold a competition - even if you are on your own. Practice as much as you wish - but when you are ready - its game on. No turning back if you have a crap round. Then post your results online, and compare them to other throwers from accross the boomerang global community.
Due to the nature of single scoring, only these events are contested (although there is nothing to stop you doing others) - the events are -:
Endurance
Fast Catch
Accuracy
Trick
6 Brits met at Pickwick fields in Birmingham, and Ollie threw somewhere in a mysterious place called Northumberland.
In Birmingham....
Martin (Pickwick Rules) Laslett Mark (Please Shut up) Lisney Greg ( I have crashed my car again) McKenna Rob (Left Hand ? right Hand ?) Russel Adam (Are you sure that wasnt 20m?) McLaughlin Jim (Safe Hands) Millar
The only thing missing from perfect conditions was sunshine. Apart from that is was spot on. We did not start until 14:30 - so that meant just over 3 hours of reasonable daylight.
Well for Brits we got some pretty damn good scores - look at the Endurance results. We did everything apart from Aussie round, and we also held proper competition standards - ie line marking, and good marking out of lines. In other words - the scores were accurate.
Some personal bests were gotten - now we need to decide if these counts in the bigger scheme of things. I would suggest that they all do, except for MTA, which was unlimited, and there is no way of telling if Adam's 47 sec was over the 100m line.....
Notable scores were Marks 51 endurance .... Adams 90 trick catch ... Martin 83 Accuracy, and Adams 47 sec MTA.
We all had a great time, and had quite a few spectators at one stage.
I quite like this format - its definately better with your throwing friends though....
Until the next one..... !
Claim that Boomerang is British
Invention is far fetched
Claims have been made that the inscription on the Swastika
stone on Ilkley Moor may have been a picture of the first Boomerang. Therefore
some people have claimed that this is evidence that the Boomerang was invented
in
A picture of the engraving can be seen at: http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/380
The BBS believe it is extremely unlikely for two main
reasons: Firstly the shape on the Swastika stone is only similar to
modern sports boomerangs. It is not similar to traditional V-shaped returning
boomerangs, or throw sticks. Modern sports boomerangs using more than two
blades have only been made since the 1960’s, according to the weight of all
other available evidence. The BBS has not seen much evidence of multi-bladed
boomerangs (i.e. 3 or 4 wings) that pre-date sport boomeranging, (but see
below). Secondly the oldest boomerangs that have been found in other
parts of the world pre-date the Swastika stone engraving. The oldest known
throwstick is dated around 30,000 years ago which pre-dates the 3-4000 BC date
that has been claimed for the Swastika stone. Even if throwsticks are excluded,
and boomerangs are defined as returning boomerangs, then there are other claims
to returning boomerangs from this period from
This said, however, in Scandinavian mythology there are
references to cross shaped weapons acting like returning boomerangs. Thorrs
Hammer was said to have returned to him (otherwise how would he have been able
to throw it again). The cross or Swastika shape is referred to in mythology as
a Fylfot (which is alarmingly an anagram of ‘Fly Oft’ ! The conspiracy grows !)
Please see this interesting link on Swastika shapes and boomerangs from the
So perhaps the inscription was made by a follower of Thorr, or even Thorr himself, in an odd moment sketching round one of his mates boomerangs. Perhaps the words to the famous traditional song were originally ‘On Ilkely Moor Thorr sat, On Ilkely Moor Thorr sat…………..etc..’ ! (Or maybe that is a bit far fetched as well.)
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