Trefriw 2008

We love Trefriw. Jay and Gill make this event so nice with their superb hospitality. The weather however was (mostly) horrible - Sat was very windy, and then rained hard for trick whilst we competed. Not good. Sunday however had an amazing 30 minutes of perfect MTA weather (Martin new British Record of 53.81, and Mathias and Adam both over 50 seconds), before the wind kicked in with a vengeance for the final Aussie round.

We did have good fun though, and thanks to Mattias, Toby and Jana form Germany, Christophe from France, and Erik from the Netherlands for all coming over to the UK as well.

We also had Nick and Sean from The Gentlemen - friends of Jay and an English Pop Rock Breakbeat band. They both threw very well in very hard conditions.

Highlights included an incredible MTA flight from Martin of 1.38.88 secs (unlimited), with a diving one handed catch to finish the flight, Adam Martin and Mattias all throwing over 50 secs, with all 3 MTA's flying at the same time. Toby and Jana threw brilliantly despite the horrible weather.

We have never known a summer as windy as this one ... just one more event (Iron Man) then its all over.

Oh - the winner - Adam McLaughlin, Martin Laslett 2nd, and a very pleased Erik in 3rd considering he fell out of the loft a few days earlier and had a real nasty bruise on his lower back.

Shrewsbury 2008

Shrewsbury has a reputation for being the windy event and didn't disappoint today. Winds were between 10-20 mph. It was like Pengwern all over again. Nearly.

The original field is back. And its godamn huge. Would be a wonderful venue for a camping Europeans - perhaps! One of the reasons for the wind is the fairly open nature of this venue. Also we were a little unlucky, the British summer hasn't been great for calm winds so far.

Out with the elastic bands, and everything else wind resistant then. We only actually threw 4 events on the Saturday, because Sunday was even stronger winds, and to be quite honest we were all shattered at the end of Saturday.

As you can see from the scores - it was tough. Mark and Adam got some pretty good Aussie round scores under very windy conditions, and Mick got an excellent MTA of 24 secs - using a carbon Palm (I think).

Lets hope for better winds at Trefriw then.

Birmingham May 2008

The season starts with great weather ! However winds although light, are a little tricky.

Theres no pleasing us is there !

It is lovely and warm though, and we had a bloody good time.

Well done to Mark for a great start to the year,and for a superb endurance round, just slightly off the 52 record. Martin once again showed he is the King of MTA, opting for a homemade carbon fibre model.

Virtual Tournament 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..... !

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Iron Man 2007

Adam McLaughlin takes home coveted 10kg trophy

At last! We have good weather. The first time this year. Conditions are actually normal. 11 competitors met at Birmingham for the last event of the British year. We had 2 welcome new faces - John Hall, who is a good friend of Mick Potts, and also Rob Russel, an up and coming new thrower.

This small field is a little tricky due to the trees that surround all 4 sides, so can create some weird conditions. Winds today ranged from 0mph - 8mph, and by the end of the day, had all but dissappeared.

MTA practice was good, with a couple of boomerangs nearly lost after 1 minute of flight. Adam chased one out of the field, over the main road, and was about to quit, whe he heard it land in someones front drive. Luckily it (and their car) was OK.

The top 3 positions were very closely contested, and in fact it was the Iron Event, which seperated the men from the boys. Martin did very well, but struggled with tricky wnds for endurance. Mark and Adam were very close, until Mark bombed out in the Iron event.

The Iron event this year, was really good. It was a kind of head to head fast catch, where you got to throw against every other person in turn. The first to get 5 catches, and run to a placed cone. Th max numbers of points you could get was 5+1 bonus for each round. The 'loser' out of the pair gained 1 point for each boomerang caught.

We also played an additional game, just for the heck of it. this was again great fun. All throwers started in the centre circle, and threw at the same time. On catching your boomerang, you then had to run to the 20m line to claim a cone that was previously placed there. The only issue is there was one less cone than throwers - so the last one to throw and catch, was in danger of dropping out of the round. However it was within the rules that you could do whatever you could to stop the other throwers from catching their own booms. This made for an interesting and fun game. The winner was Jay! (age much older than the rest of us!)

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Euros 2007

A major piece of organisation for any country that decides to host the popular and well attended event. This was first time the UK had done this, and it was a big success.

The venue was Pengwern in North Wales, and at one stage, due to the prior weeks heavy rain, it was doubtful that the field would have dried out. However for the weekend, the field was in fact OK, if a little lumpy.

Well over 70 competitors took part, from many countries, and the venue was superbly run by staff at Pengwern college. We are very grateful for their support.

The weather was warm, dry, but VERY windy. Saturday, most of Sunday had 10mph winds and more. The only event where things got anywhere near normal was for the last event - trick catch, and even then some people had a tough time. It was very difficult for everyone.

As far as the Brits did, we were pleased. Rob Butters did an exceptional job, coming in 22nd out of 72 throwers. Also I think if Mick Potts had been able to continue, he would have done even better than this.

Notable scores were - Andy Furness 15th in fast catch, Mark who came 3rd with his MTA time of 25.83, Adam came 6th with his trick catch round of 88 points. Rob did well at pretty much everything, Mick came 7th in accuracy.

The top 3 winners overall were Alex Opri (1st), Thomas Szartowicz (2nd), and Frido Frost (3rd).

The brit placings were Rob Butters (22nd), Andy Furness(32nd), Martin Laslett(36th), Jim Millar(39th), Mark Holman-Lisney(42nd), Adam McLaughlin (43rd), Mick Potts (53rd), Jack Butters (54th), Gill Butters (55th), Jim Ried (58th), Russel Jones (61st), and Greg McKenna (72nd).

Everyone thouroughly enjoyed the event, and the venue was excellent.

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Shrewsbury 2007

This year again saw the venue at the Shrewsbury Tech college. With only 8 throwers, we were able to get all the events done in the one day.

Weather was a day of 2 halves. Up till 11am, there was hardly a breath of wind. Then it rapidly picked up to 8-10 mph. We opted for accuracy first - some very good scores ( Martin 78 points), and as we were doing fast catch, the wind quickly picked up. Adam managed to get a lucky calm window, and threw a british record of 19.48 secs. This was a major milestone, as the first time the sub 20 sec has been broken in the UK.

MTA was also thown in windy conditions, and several were nearly lost in the field behind us. Again some good times were thrown (Adam 25.8 secs) and ( Mark 24.05 secs).

Overall, at the end of a windy afternoon, Mark Holman-Lisney placed 1st, Martin Laslett 2nd, and Adam McLaughlin 3rd.

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Birmingham 2007

Oh Dear the season starts of with horrible winds. Nothing like easing into things is there....

8 throwers, and highlights included a stunning foot catch from Martin, and Mark getting a good 46 secs fast catch in windy conditions.

Lets hope the rest of the year is better.

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Iron Man 2006

In all 12 throwers tried there hand at winning the coveted 12kg trophy. Weather was fair, with some tricky winds.

Notable events were Jay getting 84 in accuracy, a new veteran record, and very nearly a new British record. Tilly Butters competed for the whole event, and managed to beat her experienced boss, Gill Butters.

Mick Potts set a new PB in Aussie - 65 points, and Adam nearly lost an MTA which flew for 1:30 secs before hitting a tree.

The winner was again Martin Laslett, who battled off stiff competetion.

Trefriw 2006

The event was well attended, with 23 throwers, and a good weekend was had by all. 

Manuel Schutz won with a solid performance across the six events. The Trick Catch of 233 points was outstanding and would have been higher had the wind gods not interfered with an extremely focused performance. 

Adam McLaughlin, threw his socks off (opting for sandles in the wet grass !), and with the aid of four personal bests and breaking three British Records, (Accuracy and Fast Catch and long Distance), managed to take second place. 

Jay Butters managed to break his own veterans record for trick catch and come a very creditable 5^th overall in the competition. 

Thanks to the Butters for opening their house to all comers. 

Long Distance results to follow soon.

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2005 Trefriw

Martin Laslett wins at Trefriw  

Martin Laslett won the 9^th Trefriw tournament after winds on the second day prevented the competition completing.  

Saturday at Trefriw was wonderful weather. Team games started the day off and it was good to see some new faces at the event and the team game format allowed everyone to compete. The individual events started mid afternoon and Accuracy (Winner: Martin Laslett – 61), Fast Catch (Winner: Adam McClaughlin – 23.46) and MTA (Winner: Mark Holman-Lisney – 36.53) were completed. 

On the Sunday the weather started bad and got worse. The wind was measured at one time as averaging 28 miles an hour and gusting at over 40 miles an hour. The endurance event was completed but the top score was 6 by Martin Laslett. By the time the event ended even standing up in the centre circle was becoming a struggle. 

Throwing was abandoned for the day and the next event was taking the Marquee down, which we luckily managed to do without injuring anyone. As we couldn’t throw boomerangs a metal spike throwing contest was started. 

The AGM was held and it was agreed that further investigation was required into the details of running the European Championships. Sean McKenna-Slade, and Jay Butters were retained as General Secretary and Membership Secretary, and the Journal Editorship passed to Adam McClaughin. Mark Holman-Lisney and Martin Laslett have joint responsibility for the web site which is to be developed to have members only content. 

A site visit to the proposed Euro site was held on the Monday and the general impression was that the site should be suitable. Jay Butters is returning soon to do a full audit of the accommodation and a sub-committee will start detailed planning of likely costs. 

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2005 Germany. European Championships

Three Brits of the six booked into the Euro’s, actually competed but they still put in a sterling (sic) performance. With two new British records, and a number of personal bests the Brits have good cause to feel proud of what is probably the best showing by Brits in a major tournament. In fact, if you take the average position of all competitors from each country, the Brits came top! (This just shows how useful statistics are !).  

The championships held in Cologne (Koeln) were a fantastic event with great accommodation, ( a youth hostel that would have passed as a four star hotel in Britain ), a great sports field, great hosts, and wonderful weather. Thanks are due to Horst Fakir and friends for the great organisation and a great event. 

The best overall performance from Britain came from Martin Laslett who snuck into the top 20 with a fantastic 19^th position in a field of 81 throwers from a number of  nations (‘Britain’; Germany; France; Italy; Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Hungary; Spain (for the long distance), and even ‘exotic Europeans’ such as Eric Darnell (USA)). Mark Holman-Lisney came 32nd and Adam Mcluaghlin came 42nd.  

The highest individual position in an event went to Mark Holman-Lisney who scored 84 in Aussie Round to come equal 3^rd . This was achieved through borrowing the same rang that Adam Mclaughlin set the British Record of 85, and is the second best ever British Aussie round throw. Martin managed to prove his ‘distance isn’t everything’ theory by scoring 74 with a weighted Lazy Lazza that just made 30m, thus achieving a PB, and the 3^rd best ever British alternate throw score for Aussie round. 

Prior to the tournament the British fast catch record was 24.13 seconds, and was held by Mark Holman-Lisney. In the championships all British throwers beat this previous record and the new British record is now held by Adam Mclaughlin with a time of 21.86 seconds. This puts Adam clearly in command of the British record table as he now currently holds the records for Aussie, MTA, Fast Catch, and shares the Long Distance record.  

In Trick Catch Mark Holman-Lisney recorded a PB of 63, and Martin Laslett set a British Record for Accuracy 100 with a score of 70 (not mentioning the fact that this is the first time Brits have competed in this form of the event). 

As well as the competitors Jay made his presence felt through general warmth and some trading of natural elbows. It must have been very frustrating to have sat on the sidelines, and we hope his injuries are healed in time for Trefriw. 

The competition overall was won by Frido Frost, and the full results can be found here. It was really good to see younger throwers starting to make their mark. Lars Overzee won the Tick Catch with a score of 110, and was clearly over the moon, which was great to see. 

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2004 July France

The BBS team nudged in to the top ten ahead of the Australian team in the World Championships in Charleville , France , July 2004. “They might be able to beat us at cricket, but we can beat them at their own game”, Martin Laslett allegedly quipped. The British team, lead by captain Martin Laslett, impressed the competition with their improvement since the Keil World Championships two years before. It was said that the Brits were real contenders now.

In addition to the captain, the BBS team were: Jim (safe hands) Millar, who got his best competition score in trick catch since setting the British record; Jim (Show Dog) Reid who gained his new nickname through spectacular catches in Team Endurance; Jay (the Elbows) Butters; Adam McClaughlin, and Mark Holman-Lisney.

The Championships were well run and hosted by the French in the beautiful Champagne region. At the civic welcome the day before the Championships there was a spectacular night boomerang demonstration, using boomerangs attached to fireworks, by our Aussie mate, Roger Perry. Nothing that dangerous would ever be allowed in Britain , and ironically we would blame the European Union for the extra regulations !

The weather was kind, apart from a quick storm on the last day of competition, and the competition was enjoyed and run in good spirit. There was a good level of interest from the public and much of the action was caught on video. (The BBS will publish details of the video when received.)

Next world Championships in Japan 2006.

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