Fifty-five all-age competitors took to the surf on Sunday, October 29, to compete in Thirroul Surf Life Saving Club’s third annual Dean Mercer Dash.
The five-kilometre board paddle, involving two return laps of Thirroul Beach to Sandon Point, is held in memory of Thirroul SLSC life member and two-time national Ironman champion Dean Mercer, who passed away suddenly in 2017 at age 47.
This year, Bulli Surf Life Saving Club’s Zara Sharman and Newport Surf Life Saving Club’s Noah Maggs won the women's and men's races respectively, with Zara completing the course in 40 minutes and 46 seconds, and Noah in 38 minutes and 11 seconds.
Hot on their tails were Warilla-Barrack Point’s Surf Life Saving Club’s go-getters and last year’s champions Claire Spicknall and Jayden Beaumont, with Jayden missing first place by just one second.
“There were some challenging conditions at the start of the race [with] quite a bit of a swell pushing through, but there were a couple of nice little gaps, and the starter did a great job getting everyone off the beach without any incidents,” Thirroul Surf Life Saving Club president John Dryden said.
“Dean Mercer, he was characterised by, and he was known for, his toughness in racing and this is a five-kilometre board paddle, so it requires quite a bit of grit and stamina and that's also one of the things that sort of mark a bit of a feature of this event.
“The competitors here are actually very, very high calibre, and I think you'll see quite a few of these competitors winning national level – competing strongly, anyway.”
Event organiser and Thirroul SLSC life member Jeff Wall remembers the fortitude of Dean and his older brother, Darren, from when he coached the pair as nippers.
“When I was lifeguard here on this particular beach, they were nippers … after work we’d all paddle as a big group – not only kids from Thirroul but from Bulli, and friends of theirs from Austinmer, Coledale – and in the end a lot of those kids from those clubs joined Thirroul because it gave them a great team to compete with at state and Australian titles.
“One of our courses was in the corner over [at Sandon Point] … we’d race back here, and we’d record the time.”
In 2021, Thirroul SLSC included the Sandon Point training course as a part of the 5km race circuit as Dean remains the only member of the club to have completed the 1.25km stretch in under nine minutes.
“I guess for the kids now, they’re going to do that and see if they can match his time, which I’ve remembered from the late ’80s,” Jeff said.
In attendance on Sunday to present the winners with their medallions were Dean’s parents, Maureen and John Mercer, who’ve cheered from the sidelines at each year’s race.
“It’s nice that the club still think of Dean,” Maureen Mercer said.
“[Coming along] is not an obligation, it's a pleasure,” John Mercer said.
“Jeff Wall and Johnny [Dryden] do an outstanding job, and all the helpers.”
Registrations for this year’s Dean Mercer Dash were up by more than a dozen competitors compared to last year. Thirroul SLSC president John Dryden hopes to see sign-ups nearly double in coming years by moving the event to the start of the surf lifesaving season, avoiding clashes with other surf sport events.
“It's an event we're trying to grow, and we'd really like to probably shoot for up to a hundred or even more than that if we can in coming years,” he said.
“We're sort of thinking about when we stage the event, whether we maybe change the date in the coming year to try and attract a few more people, [as] there's a lot happening in surf lifesaving at the moment and so there's quite a few conflicts.
“First and foremost, the Dean Mercer Dash is just recognising Dean Mercer and everything he's done for the club, and then I think, secondly, it’s just to try and help promote board paddling, because we've got quite a few of our own members in it, and [it gives] our own members a chance to get out there and practise their skills and race against other competitors.”
