Nelson’s surf life saving team have put on a “stellar performance” against teams from around the country.
Nelson Surf Life Saving Club’s IRB race teams were showcased against more than 119 teams, from 27 clubs across New Zealand and Australia for the bp National IRB Championships last weekend in Waikouaiti, Otago.
Manager Mary Seelen says, despite chilly waters and challenging surf conditions, the three Nelson teams pushed through to the semifinals and finals repeatedly, producing some epic results from very competitive fields.
“Our teams have been training over three times a week for the last six months including dry land training and a lot of our guys do extra stuff on top. Physically, it’s pretty demanding.”
The competition involved two days of racing across categories including mass rescue, where multiple patients need to be picked up, single rescue, tube rescue where a crew member must dive out of the boat and swim to the patient to put them in a tube before returning to the boat.
“Tube rescue is where our U19 girls’ team of Ariana McGee, Vic Charles and Isabel Lyttle won bronze. Crew member Vic absolutely blitzed her swim.
“For such a new and young team, they showed some incredible skill and technique and are definitely ones to watch in the future,” Mary says.
Being down south, the water temperature was cold at around 14 degrees.
“It was different conditions to what we typically get in Nelson. There was big surf and it was more wavey, they absolutely loved it.”
Crews also competed in the assembly race where the fuel bladded and engine is not on the boat so the team has to assemble the IRB before they head out into the surf.
Nelson’s open women’s team of Brittany Spencer and Courtney Moir, who made two finals, narrowly missed out on medalling with a fourth place in the assembly race.
“The purpose of IRB racing is all skill based, all about real life rescues. It’s judged on time but there are really strict rules in place.”
Isabel Lyttle, Aimee Hogue, and Tiah Stanton were the patients of the weekend, spending much of the time in the cold water.
“One of the girls probably went out in nine different races,” Mary says.
“They definitely get the bravery award.”
