Four Hundred People Threw Slate at a Flooded Quarry and Only One of Them Reached the Back Wall
Easdale Island has a permanent population of about sixty and took roughly two thousand spectators on Saturday.
The World Stone Skimming Championships were held on Easdale Island near Oban on Saturday 5 September, starting at 11am. Competitors skim pieces of local slate across a flooded disused quarry.
Liam Knight, from North Carolina, won the men's title and was the only competitor to reach the back wall of the quarry, which is the maximum-distance marker. Abbey McDonald won the women's, the first New Zealander to take it, beating the six-time champion Lucy Wood.
Organisers called it the busiest running in the contest's history. Around 400 competitors entered, more than a fifth of them from outside the United Kingdom, and about 2,000 spectators came to an island with a permanent population of roughly 60. Ferry queues turned some people away.
The rules are narrow. Three skims each. The stone has to be naturally formed Easdale slate no more than three inches across. It must bounce at least three times and stay inside the lane buoys. It is scored on distance, not on the number of bounces. Categories run to open men's and women's, junior, the Old Tosser for veterans, and Bertie.
Jonathan Jennings won the men's title in 2025, the first American to do it. Lucy Wood took the women's that year at 48 metres. Simon Power of Ireland won in 2024, the year Isaac Dickinson threw 63 metres in the junior event.
Albert Baker started the championships in 1983. They lapsed, and the community group Eilean Eisdeal revived them in 1997 as a fundraiser.