Tips for stone skimming

[Earl]

In a bright yellow t-shirt and with his long hair under a baseball cap, American Kurt Steiner set the Guinness World Record for stone skimming in 2002. In Franklin, Pennsylvania, his stone skipped no less than 40 times over the water's surface.

What is the secret to success in this sport? That's what Christophe Clanet of the University of Provence in Marseille asked himself. In his laboratory he sent aluminium stones of various weights, shapes and sizes over a body of water. He kept changing the speed at which the stone was catapulted, the speed of the stone's rotation and the angle at which it hit the water. With a high speed video camera Clanet filmed the skimming, and formulated the following advice for would-be stone-skimming champions:

1. Choose a flat stone.
2. Throw hard. World record holder Steiner probably threw at about 72 km per hour.
3. Allow the stone to rotate, that way it stays on course.
4. Make sure the stone hits the water at an angle of about 20 degrees. Then contact is as brief as possible and the least energy is lost.

Bocquet, L., Clanet, C. & Hersen, F. 'Secrets of successful stone-skimming' in Nature 247 (2004), p. 29

Bocquet, L., Clanet, C., Hersen, F. & Rosellini, L. 'Skipping stones' in Journal of Fluid Mechanics 543 (2005), pp. 137—146

[timey]

I'm pretty good at stone skimming. Some of our lochs up here are ideal for stone skimming, with calm water and plenty of flat stones on the banks. Used to play it a lot as kids on holidays.

[Ck]

I used to love a bit of skimming. My dad taught me how to do it when I was a kid. Typically though he'd mostly have me finding flat stones and before I could have a go he'd check if they were any good by throwing them.

[CambCelt]

I 'member doing it on a school trip to the Lake District. My best was about six, and I was pleased with that.