International Stone Skimming Championships Romblon
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Image Courtesy: David Kershaw
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This year will mark the second running of the International Stone Skimming Championships in Romblon town, Romblon, Philippines. Scotland has long been the ancestral home of International Stone Skimming Championships but now it has a challenger that aims to offer competition at least as good and possibly surpassing the founders, by virtue of its more exotic location.
What is stone skimming (ducks and drakes or stone skipping)? If you hold a roundish, flattish stone in your hand, with your index finger curled around the circumference, and flick your wrist just the right amount then the stone will spin upon release. If you simultaneously catapult your arm in a horizontal arc at just the right height above the surface of calmish water, the spinning stone will bounce across the surface of the water. Too little spin, not horizontal enough or the wrong height, and water not calm enough, then the stone will simply plop.
The number of bounces and the distance traveled by your stone are directly related to the roundishness, flattishness of the stone, the arc, horizontalness and sweep-speed of your arm, combined with the calmness of the water.
There are other factors to winning an international stone skimming championship. Some claim that and early bounce will give greater impetus to the stone along its way, while others with assert that a longer flight before the first bounce will achieve a superior result. Few really know the scientific equations needed to calculate the perfect distance for the first bounce, and by the time too many beers have been consumed even fewer care. Like most sports, the really important thing is to have a bloody good time with like minded people doing something that everyone can get involved with, near a body of water.
It is one of those curiosities of youth: how to defy gravity and a simple law of physics that says a body denser than water, on a body of water, will sink. The skill of stone skimming is almost instinctive – give a child a roundish, flattish stone and a body of calmish water and there is a high probability that s/he will try to make the stone bounce across the surface of the water. Since before it was first recorded in literature (1565: as “Duck and Drakes”), stone skimming has idled away hours of childrens’ time, and that of countless adults.
Organized in three divisions (children, women and men), the 1st International Stone Skimming Championships, held in Romblon in 2012, attracted an international cast of expatriate stone skimmers of all sexes and ages. Some might conclude that these expatriates may have been out in the Philippine sun too long but, having just met the organizers and many of this year’s competitors, enjoying a cold beer outside the Romblon Deli & Coffee Shop, I can assert that this year’s championship will also include a determined contingent of local, Filipino stone skimmers . . . probably attracted by watching the jovial nature of the competition last year and realizing that the skills involved are not inherently foreign.
In the 1st International Stone Skimming Championships in Romblon, in 2012, the stones used in the competition were all provided by the organizers. As the day wore on and the various heats were decided, the pile of stone diminished and some complained that the stones left for the final rounds were not ideally suitable for the purpose. In 2013, the organizers of the 2nd International Stone Skimming Championships in Romblon have solved this problem – bring your own stones.
Where the Romblon stone skimming championships differ from the Scottish stone skimming championships is that, in Scotland the winner is determined by the farthest distance traveled by the skimming stones whereas, in Romblon the stone that skims the most times, irrespective of distance traveled, is deemed the winner.
Both methods of winning calculation are open to dispute. In Romblon, three independent and impartial judges are convened to count the number of times a given stone has skimmed the surface. The average of the three counts will be the recorded number for that stone to determine who has won and who has not.
If you would like to try your wrist at winning the 2nd International Stone Skimming Championships in Romblon, then come on down to Romblon town, Philippines, on 10th March and drop by the Romblon Deli & Coffee Shop for breakfast, to find out where the competition will be held. If you are really determined to win, arrive in Romblon a few days early and go beach-combing to select your own cache of perfectly roundish, flattish skimming stones.
For More information contact David Kershaw email : dpkershaw@gmail.com