The Caber toss is a traditional Scottish athletic event involving the tossing of a caber, a large wooden pole.

Caber being tossed

To toss the caber, the thrower first cups their hands together. The caber is then held vertically with the 'bottom' end in the thower's cupped hands. Continuing to hold the caber vertically (which requires a good deal of careful balance!), the thrower runs forward and tosses the caber into the air so that it turns 180° end-over-end in the air and lands on the former 'top' end. Because the caber still has angular momentum, the former 'bottom' end then (hopefully) falls forward and away from the thrower.

The object is not the distance of the throw, but rather to have the caber fall directly away from the thrower after landing. A perfect throw ends with the 'top' end nearest to the thrower and the 'bottom' end pointing exactly away. If the throw is not perfect, it is scored by viewing the caber as though it were a hand on the clock. The ideal position is 12:00. A caber pointing to 11:00 would yield a better score than one pointing to 10:30. If the caber lands on its end and falls back towards the thrower, the score for that throw is based on the maximum vertical angle that the caber achieved. An angle of 87° is better than 75°.

A traditional caber is around 16–20 feet (5–6 m) long and weighs around 80–130 pounds (35–60 kg). The size, and particularly the length, of the caber mean that enormous strength is required simply to balance it vertically, and even more is required to toss it. For competitions involving less skilled athletes a shorter and/or lighter caber is used. It is not unusual for a caber to break in the course of a competion.

The game originated in Scotland some hundreds of years ago, and is a regular fixture at Highland Games.

The word caber (or kaber) comes from Scottish Gaelic 'cabar'.

External links

• Rules from the Southeastern Scottish Amateur Athletic Association