So this past weekend was the annual Ocean Beach Ultimate Hat Tournament. 60 people from around NZ meet at Ocean Beach (which is about 30 minutes from Whangarei) to play two days of Ultimate. All the teams are picked randomly based on ability, sex, and date of registration. On Saturday morning when the teams were named out I stood with my team and looked at all the other ones and was pretty sure I got a bad draw and got put on the worst team in the tournament... (more on Jordan's space)

Beach Ultimate has long got its players from the grass Ultimate scene. There are beach tournaments galore but few leagues. However this is slowly changing. Portugal had the first national Beach Ultimate organization: BUG-P. However a second organization just got started: Associação Paulista de Beach Ultimate (APBU) in Brazil. No grass, just beach :-)

APBU is now organizing the national Beach Ultimate league March - September 2007. The first games will be on Praia do Centro in Peruibe. Here is a picture of the local team "Jararacas Beach Ultimate Team":

Where will the next 'beach-only' Ultimate organization come from? Spain? Italy? New Zealand? US? Mexico? Any bets?

Dima and Valeriya Gavrilchenko from the Ukraine translated the BULA Sponsorship guide into Russian. Thanks!

Download Russian Sponsorship Guide here
Link to original (English) Sponsorship guide

UPDATE 19 AUG 2009: The BULA 4-on-4 and 5-on-5 rules appendix were also translated into Russian:
Link to the Russian 4-on-4 appendix
Link to the Russian 5-on-5 appendix

Wow! This great play took place at the Battle on the Beach (BOTB) tournament in West Palm Beach March 8, 2003.

Video courtesy of Rick Opton.