I know Jeff has been waiting impatiently for months for me to post this. I finally took some measurements today.
The first graph compares my Throwback against the data I took on one of my Gates several years ago. Take into account that the initial speed of the Throwback on this particular throw is lower than the Gates. Time zero is when I land the boomerang so the graphs can be extended to find the initial speed.
The main conclusion is that the two tops are quite similar. There is not the big difference I found between the Gates and the Bearing King. If you want to split hairs, there is a little advantage (longer half-life) for (this) Gates with respect to (this) Throwback, so it will outspin it by a little.
The difference is more obvious on a logarithmic scale. The slope is proportional to the rate of spin loss and the Throwback is more steep.
Finally, some notes of caution. These are measurements on a single Throwback. It could be that mine is not optimal (although it is the one I used to break the corkscrew world record.) In fact, after I plotted that curve I decided I wanted one with the Throwback starting above 5000 RPM to match the Gates data. I had to throw a really hard boomerang and on a miss the tip of the Throwback came partially out. That may be the reason it performed a little worse after that, as you can see on this graph:
Hopefully, it is only dirty . . .
Well, I know Yohans will not be happy about the YYJ top matching his top

To be fair, he had told me I should take out one of the two bearings of the Throwback and measure it like that. He told me it was probably a mistake to put two bearings and he believes with one bearing the spin time should improve. I think he is probably right. It will be an interesting comparison. Stay tuned.
Jorge
PS: Next time I will plot the data only every 10 seconds, not every 2 seconds . . .
