This is the old archived Trust page. See www.stoneskimming.com for latest details.

History

Easdale was historically a centre for the quarrying of slate. The whole island with the exception of the central ridge is made of the stuff, and in the course of extraction, almost half of the surface area of the island has been worked.

Slate is no longer quarried on the island though the industry has left Easdale a legacy of six large water filled pools (the now flooded quarries), and millions of flat water rounded pebbles on the beaches... perfect ammunition for the ancient pastime of stone skimming. You can find out more about the history of Easdale's Slate Industry here.

Stone skimming has undoubtedly been an idle recreational pursuit on Easdale for many hundreds of years, though in the 80's the Islander's decided to get serious and stage the first World Stone Skimming Championship. The competition has been going on and off since then, though in recent years it has become a regular and increasingly popular annual event.

So what is Stone Skimming?

Stone skimming is the art of throwing flat stones onto the surface of water in such a manner that they 'bounce' repeatedly, causing the stone to travel across the water in a series of skips before losing momentum and sinking. The rules devised for the Easdale Island World Stone Skimming Championships are as follows:

• The stone shall have a maximum diameter of 3 inches at any given point.
• The stone shall have been formed naturally.
• The stone must bounce three times before sinking.
• The stone that skims the farthest within the marked lane wins, irrespective of the number of bounces.
• Each competitor gets five attempts, with the longest skim counting.

The Stone Skimming Ceilidh

This year's championship was held over the weekend of the 23rd and 24th of September 2000. A well attended ceilidh was held on the Saturday night, with the skimming competition following as always on the Sunday afternoon.

Special thanks are immediately due to Heather Ale Ltd and Maclays of Alloa for their generous support of this year's event.

The ceilidh was held in the Drill Hall with Trust volunteers manning a barbecue at the front door for the hungry revellers. The proceedings were wide and varied with contributions coming from the omnipresent Easdale ceilidh band outfit 'Fools Gold' and many other islanders and friends. Thanks to everyone who took the time to give us a tune. Mellon and John broke radically with any sense of West Highland tradition and performed a rewrite of the Deep Purple classic 'Smoke on the Water'. 'Slate on the water, seagull in the sky' indeed.

The official 'Stone Skimming' Mariachi band from (as reported in the Daily Express) 'the cactus strewn badlands of Lochwinnoch', were seen to be furtively egging each other on towards the end of the ceilidh, and eventually worked up the collective will and inclination to play out the evening to the rapturous welcome and incredulous smiles of all present. So a great night was had by all, prior to getting down to the serious stuff of competition the next day.

The Year 2000 Championships

The day dawned dry, mild, and overcast, with a light easterly wind. Entries for the stone skimming were taken in the tearoom, and much to the delight of many punters, you not only got your name on the list of entrants for the entry fee, but also received a little cloth bag with a tie ribbon, elegantly stamped with the words 'Official Easdale Skimmers'. The bag contained five regulation stones from the beach, and made a great souvenir. Henry and Jenny have to be thoroughly applauded for so much hard work and attention to detail in the role of organising the competition.

The competition got underway at 1 pm at the usual venue of the quarry behind the Easdale Island Folk Museum, with a piper marking the opening of proceedings with a few rousing tunes. Official scorekeeper Mellon made the introductory remarks, with witty asides from the official scorekeeper Bert, resplendent with the regulation stone measurer around his neck. Reporters and TV crews (Sky News and STV) mingled with the crowd for a story, and discovered from Fiona Rowan that 'port and brandy' was her preferred libation to steel the nerves prior to the defense of her female world title.

The quarry had a skimming lane marked out with numbered buoys every 5m, and a team of spotters along the quarry edge to report on the length of each throw. The crowd were wowed by the arrival of the Mariachi band, this time in the full regalia of waistcoats, cummerbunds, and sombreros. Mandolin player Rob arrived sporting the most majestic of black sombreros with silver embroidery, apparently sourced from islander Jamie the previous night. The band struck up on their repertoire of Mexican ballads, and the competition got underway. Several of the spotters were finding it difficult to compete for the attention of Bert's ear when shouting the length of skims against the melodic overtones of Lorne's trumpet. This said with the possible exception of Iain 'Concorde' MacNaughton, whose vocal presence allowed anyone the luxury of monitoring the longer throws from anywhere in Argyll. I can certainly vouch for audibility as far as the pier on the other side, as we paddled around in Mark Segal's brand new inflatable on its maiden voyage - now christened the Easdale Skimmer. Mark was taking the weekend off from performing his unique street act 'The Danger Show'. He's booked for an appearance at the World Stone Skimming Championship next year, but in the meantime you can check him out at www.marksegal.com.

All eyes were on the the champion male skimmer for the last two years, Ian Shellcock, as he took to the slate for his throws. Ian had been a deserving champion, and had helped publicise the event nationally when last year he was invited down to London to appear on the BBC's 'Big Breakfast'. He had however succeeded in generating a fair amount of local rivalry through his assertions that the English were superior to the Scots at skimming stones, though on this occasion he failed to muster anything other than a wry smile as all his stones fell short of the current leader. I'm sure he'll be back with a vengeance next year.

Due to the size of the entry this year (perhaps 150 plus competitors in all categories), the competition went on for most of the afternoon. But at the end of the day, the results were collated, and the winners were assembled for a ceremony outside the tearoom. The presentations were all made by the curator of the Easdale Museum, Jean Adams MBE, with suitable trumpet fanfares from Lorne Cowieson. The Mariachi band closed the proceedings with some music, just as the skies opened and the rain came down for the first time all weekend.

And the results were as follows. Congratulations to all the winners...

Picture Gallery

Here are some pics from this year's World Stone Skimming Championships and Ceilidh. Hold the cursor over the image for a quick description. Click on any thumbnail for a popup window with the whole image. You may have to wait a little for the larger images to load (20-40kb).