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Westside is a Finnish disc manufacturer which has impressed with some truly excellent efforts including the King and Northman reviewed here previously.

This time the first disc I'll look at is the Swan putter.

To begin with the disc came in hot pink. Now I'm 6-foot-1, and male, and except for breast cancer awareness promotions pretty well anti-pink for anyone except for baby girls, so I admit I wasn't overly excited to be throwing the pink disc with a big swan on it.

The swan hot stamp is actually interesting as the swan figure also known as Swan of Tuonela comes from the Finnish national epic Kalevala. Drawing inspiration from the epic in naming discs is sort of a Westside tradition.

Once I got past the colour (it is available in more than pink), the Swan turned out to be one of the truest flying putters I laid my hands on this year. It has very little fly, and is very accurate with 30-40 feet of the basket.

Grab it in a colour other than pink, and it'll quickly be a favoured choice at the basket.
Oh, and for the record my wife sort of inherited the Swan and she threw it most of the summer, and liked how it flew.

The Boatman is the second Westside disc for the week. It is another driver option, in particular for forehand throwers, an area I still need vast improvement.

The Westside website details the "Westside Boatman is an over-stable speed driver with lots of glide and control. It can handle a surprising amount of wind For less experienced players the Westside Boatman can be best used as a long and precise sidearms throw disc, or at situations where a right-handed players needs to go left."

The thick rim certainly gives you the ability for a firm grip for either forehand, or backhand throws, and for players with bigger hands it's an added bonus.

As in other Westside discs, the hot stamp design is a boatman figure also known as the Boatman of Tuonela from Finnish national epic Kalevala.

A versatile driver, the Boatman will never be a bad selection in the disc golf bag.

Looking ahead Westside has the Warship, a mid-range option, and the Giant a distance driver under development. Hopefully they will be released in 2012, and I'll be able to bring a review to readers.

Check the out these discs in more detail at www.westside.fi

NEXT WEEK: A look at drivers offering from Latitude 64.