After a year of hard work learning the ins and outs of sweeping surfboats, Nick Lowe has swept in his first race as an accredited sweep for the club at the second round of the South Coast Boat Series held Port Kembla on the 4^th December. Nick took the clubs u19 boys crew for his maiden voyage out to sea in a surf boat race and came back with a respectable 6^th in the U19 division final. The U19 crew providing a sentimental favourite for Nick as it is the crew he predominately taught to row when first started out on the journey towards sweep accreditation.

The club has been working hard to develop new sweeps in the past few years with 3 sweeps accredited in the past 3 seasons with another starting the process at the start of this season. The process can be quite involved revolving around coaching knowledge, crew member mentoring, and learning the techniques to enable the sweep to safely guide a crew out to sea through the shore break and back again which can prove challenging at times. Nick having recently been assessed and signed off for his accreditation is now free to sweep in competition and will be regularly guiding the U19 fellas around the turning cans for the remainder of the season

The past month has seen the club compete at a couple of carnivals in the local region, both times with the swell up. A carnival at Mollymook at the end of November greeted the young crews of Helensburgh Stanwell Park with waves in the range of 3-5ft. The preceding carnage presented to the young rowers in the divisions prior to their own race really had the nerves set in. to their credit, they didn’t let their nerves get the better of them and all crews got out and back safely for the 2 rounds. Surf conditions again deteriorated in the later part of the day and the crews were pulled from the remaining racing. It was steep learning curve for their second ever carnival!

Port Kembla saw the surf punch in at 2-4ft in the early part of the day easing to 2-3ft by the final rounds. Whilst not as vicious as the Mollymook break, the Port Kembla break proved tricky for all crews and sweeps alike. The break was longer than the new crews are used to with an inner bank and outer bank breaking meaning the crews were not out until halfway out to the turning cans. None the less our crews were no doubt better for the run the week previous at Mollymook and proved to be competitive in the big surf. The girls crew comprised of a mixture of the u23 and u19 female crew and overcame some bad luck in the first race with placings in at 4^th and 3^rd for the remainder of the carnival. The boys as mentioned made the final and came 6^th though they showed some real surfboat rowing in the lead up to final pulling down a wave in a heat coming from last place to snag a few extra places and book themselves a spot in the final.

The club now looks towards the next few carnivals over the Christmas and early new year period hoping to improve on our standings as we go. Of course, none of this would be possible without the help of our sponsors Helensburgh Tradies, Peabody Energy, Helensburgh Tyres and our new sponsor on board local business Coastal Insurance Services. Check them all out if you get the chance.