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Sweeping Now Women's Work Too |
Surf life saving is no longer the male dominated sport it once was – except in one discipline.
When the sweeps stand up on the stern of a surf boat, they might be young or they may be old and grizzled, but they’re nearly always men.
Only two women are holding the long oar at this year’s Australian Surf Life Saving Championships on Scarborough Beach. And one of them, Carrie Turner, 38, has made the trek from Darwin to sweep the three men’s boats in the Masters competition as well as rowing in the women’s crew.
“All our sweeps are rowing so they needed someone to sweep the men’s crews,” the Health Department dietician, who has been doing the crucial boat job for about two years, said today.
Pleased to call themselves Darwin Boat People – written on their red shirts which sport a yellow star not dissimilar to the Vietnam flag – Turner wasn’t as sure about her role on the water.
“Um,” she laughed. “Yeah, when it’s flat it’s easy. This morning there was a bit of wave and it’s a bit more challenging. We don’t get a lot of practice on that so it’s good to come away and have a go – though not in front of a crowd.
“I just wanted to come in straight.”
But it’s not all plain sailing, so to speak, at Turner’s home beach of Casuarina, as Bob Creek, the president of NT Surf Life Saving, was quick to stress.
“It’s very flat but it can get very exciting when you get a cyclone. You can actually get a two or three metre storm wave and that’s lively,” he said with a typical Territorian chuckle.
Like many northerners, Turner was born down south, in Tasmania, about as far from Darwin as you can get in Australia but went north in search of year-round 30 degrees-plus days.
“I was attracted by the warm weather and got a job for 12 months – that was about 10 years ago,” says the now bona fide Territorian.
It may be a long way from home for the Darwin crews but as Creek says, it’s a long way from anywhere.
“Those teams on the top of the east coast, like Cairns and Townsville, have really had to make a trek,” he said. “For us by land it’s about 5000 clicks but we’re really enthusiastic.
“Kurrawa’s been great but it’s also good to have a bit of variety. It’s put a bit of spring back in the step of the old guys who’ve done a lot of travelling over the years but it’s also shown the young guys how to do surf life saving around Australia.” |
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Surfboat News
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A 2nd European Surf Rowers Conference was hosted by Twickenham Rowing Club on the 28th April 2007. |
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