Scottish Games 3/3

The Sheaf Toss.

That's a bag a sawdust. I didn't catch the exact weight they were using for the event, but the sheaf is usually between 16 and 20 lbs. For the sake of reference, the very heaviest ten-pin bowling balls are 16 lbs. The idea is to pitch it over a cross-bar for height.

Take a good look at the posts supporting the cross-beam they are pitching over. The posts are thirty feet (10m) high. The winning toss of the day was 27'6". In this picture the event has just started and the cross bar is only at about 14'.

56 lb. Weight for Height

That chunk of metal he's lifting is solid and weighs 56 lbs. For reference sake, this is about the same weight as dozen full two-litre pop-bottles. It's being thrown over a cross-bar for height.

16 lb. Hammer

Again, that might as well be a heavy 10-pin bowling ball on the end of the stick.

Caber Toss

Here's the one everyone loves. The competition caber the heavies were tossing was 19' long and 105 lbs. The two pictures under the cut are actually of the qualifying caber, which in this case was only 16' and 105 lbs. What you see in this picture is the women's and novice caber, which was 16' and 95 lbs.

The idea with the caber toss to flip the log end-over-end for accuracy. Distance has nothing to do with it. A perfect throw will "turn" exactly straight ahead of the person making the toss. The accuracy of the throw is rated in a range from 9 to 3 as they appear on the face of a clock, assuming the thrower is in the 6 o'clock position, with a perfect toss being 12. A judge stands directly behind the person tossing the caber to make the call. The person who made the last throw stands the caber up for the next person, which is what you are seeing  in this picture.

This is a tough event to photograph because just in picking up the caber and trying to keep it in balance to get started the competitors wander significantly around the field so spectators have to keep their distance, but there are a couple good ones under the cut.