This weekend (June 30 – July 1) the Forster Surf Life Saving Club (SLSC) inflatable rescue boat (IRB) team will head to South West Rocks for the NSW State IRB Championships.
The team heads into the event full of confidence after completing two rounds of the NSW IRB Premiership.
The season so far has been a bit disrupted with high seas causing the cancellation of round three at Umina.
The 2017 IRB Premiership Champions, Kiama Downs SLSC should be one of the teams to beat on current form, along with 2018 Premiership winners Caves Beach from the Hunter. North Cronulla, Terrigal and Queenscliff along with Woonona should fight out the minor places.
A number of other teams are all strong chances at taking any number of medals including Catherine Hill Bay, Thirroul, South Maroubra.
Our Forster team, if all goes well, are a real chance to reach semi-finals in most divisions and then it will just be a case of who makes the best of the conditions from there.
Forster club director of surf sports, Beth Lee is looking forward to the weekends competition.
“All the young members of the team have really improved during the season and for such a small team other clubs are amazed at the number of semi-finals and finals that we have made during the Premiership,” Beth said.
“All we can do is our best.
“We will be competing in 15 of the 16 race categories and we welcome new competitors to our team in Alana Williams, Annelise Romer, Lauren Fardel and Jack Wood who joined us from Cape Hawke for the IRB racing season.”
This is event series is a competition, however it also helps in setting the skills displayed by drivers and crew, which is a realistic view of what they may be called upon to do in a beach rescue situation.
These competitors are enhancing their lifesaving skills.
A big thank you in advance to all the officials that make the event a success.
We are sure to see some of our local officials down at the beach making for an efficiently run event.
South West Rocks community groups in addition to the local surf club always come together to make it a great few days.
