Around the Clubs

It's been another challenging week for local surf lifesaving clubs, with the Rena breakup disrupting our northern neighbours at Waihi Beach.

It means the Top Rookie Lifeguard of the Year competition has had to change venues on Sunday, with Mount Maunganui taking the hosting rights from Waihi Beach.

The Top Rookie Competition is designed to test the skills of the rookies (12-13 year olds) within the Eastern Region, in male, female and overall categories.

Rookies compete in a number of theory and practical tests, having trained in all aspects of surf lifesaving in preparation for sitting their surf award when they turn 14.

Papamoa

Our rookies have consistently done well in the previous Top Rookie competition and we're hoping to continue that trend this weekend.

We've also had three of our young lifeguards pass their IRB Drivers Award and four passed their Crewman's Award last Sunday. The testing was in extremely challenging surf conditions so they did very well to get through.

Junior Surf started up again on Sunday, although the weather wasn't on our side and the conditions kept everyone out of the water. Junior Surf will be on every Sunday from 10am-midday, through to early March. Anyone aged between five and 13 is welcome to come down and give it a go.

We're also building up for our big Papamoa Junior Invitational carnival on January 21, starting with a march-past at 10am. Juniors come from across the North Island for this fun-packed day of competition.

Our regional lifeguards helped out with a rescue at Papamoa East last week, when two children were caught in a flash rip and were a long way out to sea when help arrived. Two exhausted adults managed to keep them afloat until the IRB arrived to take them to shore. Please remember – the safest place to swim at a beach is always between the flags.

Mount Maunganui

Congratulations to the big Mount Maunganui team who competed at the Owen Chapman Cup at Red Beach on Saturday. There were plenty of shining lights, but among the highlights were the open men's ski relay win and the form of our ‘rookie' beach sprinter Fraser Cameron, who took out the flags and sprint double.
Sam Shergold also continued his recent form, cleaning out a quality under-19 board race field to win in style. Even though we weren't eligible for the cup, we won the unofficial points tally and brought home plenty of loot for our troubles.

We've got another big team heading down to Taranaki this weekend, with IRB crews racing in the BP Surf Rescue series at Oakura on Saturday and more than 50 athletes competing in the Central Region championships at Oakura on Sunday, which doubles as the second round of the Sonic Surf Race series.

Omanu

No report.