More than 50 lifesavers and inflatable rescue boat (IRB) crew members from Coogee, Clovelly, Thirroul, Woonona and Helensburgh-Stanwell Park Surf Life Saving Clubs took part in the first IRB Expression Session at Stanwell Park Beach on March 18 and 19.
With their annual Scary Garie IRB Racing event cancelled due to the prolonged closure of Garie Beach, Coogee Surf Life Saving Club members were searching for a new location willing to accommodate the overnight racing and training event.
After a conversation between surf club members at last year’s National Winter Swimming Championships in Wagga, it was decided that Stanwell Park Beach would host the event.
Helensburgh-Stanwell Park Surf Life Saving Club president Lee Bailey said the club welcomed the opportunity to host lifesavers from not only Coogee and Clovelly, but from other local clubs too.
“Coogee and Clovelly normally get together and they go down to Garie… but, basically, this time around Coogee came down to [Stanwell Park], Thirroul came up and Woonona came up, and it was all about sharing ideas, learning from each other, having a blast [and] getting to know each other, because these guys race each other during winter as well,” Lee said.
“They did a bit of a mock racing in and out, and starts, and learning different techniques about how to get over the waves, how to pick up the patients, how their motors [can] work better, how they trim their boats.
“It was more rescue training techniques – how do Coogee do things, how do Stanwell Park do things, how do Woonona do things – it [was] like one big training exercise and one big getting-to-know-you exercise.
"One thing that was particularly awesome was that Coogee and Clovelly did four hours of our [Sunday] morning patrol, so they came down and they volunteered their time on our beach to look after our people."
The action included everything from leading an expedition of 10 IRBs along the Royal National Park and northern Illawarra coastline to enjoying clubhouse drinks on Saturday afternoon, but it was teaching the out-of-towners how to tackle the famed Stanwell Park shore dump that would prove a memorable moment for Helensburgh-Stanwell Park lifesavers.
Despite it not being marked as a spectator event, Lee said the weekend-long Expression Session drew plenty of onlookers.
“When you have 10 IRBs in the water, it certainly creates attention.
“We did have a lot of followers down the beach in the morning [and] there was a lot of people doing their Sunday morning walks stopping and watching – certainly when they were underneath the Sea Cliff Bridge, they drew a crowd of all the people walking along the bridge.
“I can only imagine when they went down to the Figure 8 Pools [on Sunday], the people down there would've had a look as well.”
Though this event was the first of its kind at Stanwell Park Beach – and the first time Illawarra surf clubs have had a chance to participate – Lee is positive it won’t be the last, with last weekend’s attendees calling for a rerun sooner than you might expect.
“I think it'll certainly be something that [we’re] talking about having again next year... [they’re] actually talking about having it again next week, but that'd probably be too soon,” Lee said with a laugh.
“Hopefully it will be a yearly event and it'll get bigger and bigger, because at Stanwell Park that's what we want to do – we want to bring in other clubs, and we just want a whole community-type thing going, and this sort of stuff is fantastic.”
