St Kilda Life Saving Club

Two up this morning…. Just waiting, poised for the ‘Spirit of Tasmania’s’ 3 bow waves to come in for our daily ‘Surf’ practice!!!

With moody sky’s for the Masters / Ressies and young women!

Plus…
logging more hours on the long oar, after rowing in the earlier session!

Photo credit (and thanks) to the local gentleman who took this, then came up after the session to Airdrop us a copy!

Victorian State Titles V2.0

5 St Kilda crews took to the water to contest the Previously postponed state titles. With 5 crews, St Kilda had the equal most crews (with Port Campbell)

The Crews have been toiling away all year, training hard and this is a good step on our way to Aussies.

Before we go into the individual crews, we wouldn’t be here without the support of the committee and our training sweeps, who help out guiding our crews, filling in as sweeps and rowers. So thank you to Kate Durrant, Simon Gurr and Marcus Stacey.

Now the teams.... I’ll start with the most seasoned crew the Angry Dogs in Reserve grade. The Dogs are a 220 years masters crew who are still very competitive in Ressies.... great rowing and speed in the rounds saw the crew make the final. And despite a good row, we were unable to match it with the true Ressies crews in their mid 20’s and a couple of 160 and 180 masters crews. But we kept them all honest and were right on their tails in a flat hard drag race for a 5th placing.

Open women - we’ve been improving well and slowly chipping away at the leaders all year. In a strong field the ladies put in some good rows, and were never more than a few lengths from the leaders in each race, earning a 5th place finish.

Open Men - 3 2nds to the Lorne crew and a win saw the men take home the silver. Good, hard, close racing all day saw both St Kilda and Lorne well ahead, but in the end we were a little off, but happy with where we are in the build up to Aussies.

Ressies women - with 3 x under 23 girls and a 24 year old, we were the youngest crew in the field. However 3 good rounds saw the crew make the final. After a terrible start(er?) the crew were last out of the break, however regrouped and powered through the field to turn in 1st. On the run home the girls rose to another level, and managed to pull over the final wave to finish clear and are our newest state champions. This was our first State title Gold in Reserve women.

Under 23 women- in a 3 round, round robin , the girls had a clean sweep, however kept their best til last powering away from the competition to win well and truly clear. This was our under 19 crew form last year, so in their first year in under 23’s the future looks bright.

Thank you to all the rowers, parents and cheerleaders on the beach and especially to life member Leigh Reither for doing duty boat for the club..... with winter IRB racing fast approaching, if you’d like to learn some new skills and continue on St Kilda’s winning ways... let Leigh know!

We were joined for sunrise today by a very friendly little penguin!

Well done to the 4 St Kilda crews who made the trip to Portland for the VSRL open.

2 gold (& earning state team selection)
-Under 23 Women
-Reserve Grade Male
1 silver - Open Women
1 Bronze - Reserve Women

Great work crews!

Good Morning Melbourne... (photo credit K-Dog)

Open women and under 23 women head to sea!

A few days late for last weeks "Friday Fashback" and as promised. A focus on the early Female crews.

In 2003 St Kilda embarked on an expansion. We had 2 male crews and 1 female crew. Swept here by Wayne Lee these ladies paved the way and all took to the oar for the first time.

During this time LSV held a few more "bay" carnivals where clubs new to surf boat / surf sport, new rowers, new crews and new sweeps could hone their skills and find competitive racing at the more novice level.

The ladies of St Kilda's early crews showed what could be achieved through their dedication to learning and attitude to improvement. And in a very short period, the St Kilda females won their first pennant, at Mordialloc in 2004. A picture of the clubs first pennants and crews can be seen in the club, in the stairs up to the patrol tower. Have a look next time you are at the club.

A few years after this (2008) the St Kilda Open women were starting to travel interstate and improve their competitiveness through series like "Ocean Thunder - Pro surfboat series", and by 2012 were finding form winning the clubs first Open Women State medal (Bronze).

Throughout this time there was one common trait amongst the St Kilda women. A dedicated and very importantly for the club and our new sweeps loyality to St Kilda LSC. Without this, the club, the crews and the sweeps would not have progressed.

Friday Flash Back #4 - IRB’s part 2

A bit of a long one today... but a great read and a few great shots of the racing, the old club and the fun times ST Kilda LSC members had travelling in NZ.

After a successful first year of racing in “95”. 3rd overall and winning 2 silver and 2 bronze medals at state championships. The “96” IRB season brought a lot of excitement and enthusiasm around the club. Was this a chance for club success , which the club had been looking for after so many years.
The IRB team started well, placing 2nd and 6th in the two warm-up twilight carnivals during summer.
The team of Paul Erwin, Rodney Bloss, Leigh Reither, Kristin Reither, Rodney Kelly, Matt McLaughlan, Scott Stone, Michael Goonan, Shanon Redmond , Dora DosSantos, Sally Wilson, Pauline Coulton and team manager Joel Reither is a who’s who of ST Kilda LSC’s recent history.

Racing against 13 other clubs, the team won the overall points at the Stkilda carnival and came second at Middle park. The team only needed to continue the good form and the club would have a chance of winning the series in just its 2nd year. Unfortunately at the Carrum carnival a less than good result left the team second in the overall aggregate for the home and away season.
The team had a good chance to redeem themselves at the state champs that year and when the medals were on the line, the team stood up. The women collecting 3 bronze from 3 races. The men winning 2 silver , with the highlight being Paul Erwin ( driver) , Kristin Reither (crew), Scott Stone (patient) getting gold in the single patient pick-up. The first gold medal for a Stkilda LSC crew in IRB competition.
Following the success of 1996 the team realised they needed ‘up to date’ equipment if they were to compete on a level field with the other top clubs. So the 1997 season started with a big fundraising effort which resulted in just enough funds to buy a new boat and two motors. This also enabled the increased the growth of the team with Donna Anderson, Sandra Schultze, Chantal Guziak ( rows for Lorne now), Ashleigh Potter, Evan potter, Stacy Allen, Fraser Yendall. The club going from 6 IRB drivers to 16.
So the pressure was on to claim a spot in the “A” team and it lifted everyone’s skills with many hours training
Stkilda dominated every carnival and Stkilda “A” won the series and the “B” team finished sixth overall.
At state champions, held at Stkilda the team walked away with 4 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze and the partying started.
The club had even more to celebrate in the 96/97 season. Not only had the club won IRB’s , it had done exceptionally well in the patrolling awards and with Rodney Bloss winning gold in beach flags and beach sprint, Blossy and Paul Erwin - bronze for belt and reel, and another bronze for the beach relay team at the ‘summer’ State Championships, the combination of all this was the club won the ‘Beaurepair shield’ , for ‘Best Victorian club’.

In addition, during the IRB season, Stkilda LSC was invited to race at the ‘Surf Life Saving’ IRB carnival held at South Melbourne. Our female crew driven by Dora ,won the female single rescue receiving the pennant against the highly rated ‘SLSC clubs’.
Stkilda still only having a small membership , this dedicated group had achieved a lot and was well respected throughout the RLSS. The friendships and mates that grew in this time are still strong today.

During this period of resurgence, around the end of the “96” IRB season, the Surf Lifesaving IRB championships was held at Torquay ( this event changes states every year ). A group of Stkilda members went to watch and learn if they could be doing anything better. Leigh and Kristin enjoyed what they were watching. The question was raised with the committee about affiliating with Surf Lifesaving Australia. The older members of the committee didn’t like this proposal and Rejected the motion. So Leigh, Kristin and Matt McLaughlan we’re forced to join Bancoora Surf Lifesaving club in order to race IRB’s against the ‘Surf Clubs’ in the “97” season , (while still racing for Stkilda in RLSS).
This accelerated the skills of Leigh and Kristin through gaining valuable experience racing in surf conditions for Bancoora SLSC. With this additional knowledge they set their sights on training a team from St Kilda LSC to cope with the conditions Muriwai (NZ) was going to confront the team with.

So with Stkilda LSC being the best IRB team in Port Phillip bay, it time to take on the world, sending a team over to New Zealand for the 1998 World lifesaving championships held at Muriwai beach near Auckland.


The small team consisting of Leigh and Kristin Reither, Ashleigh Potter, Stacy Allan, Dora DosSantos, Sally Wilson and team mangers Joel Reither, Shelley Curwood self funded their whole trip and flew out to New Zealand in February 98
Days before competition starting, teams were allowed to train in the provided IRB’s . With large surf conditions and the IRB being under inflated, Kristin sustained a serious ankle injury while training. Kristin attempted to race, however after just one race it became apparent he couldn’t continue. It was a learning experience at the top level for Ash and Stacy in these conditions and the crew performed well.

Thank you to Leigh and Dora for all this incredible history.

Mad Monday #2 or 3...

On our mad Mondays we’ll try and post some of the more ‘mad’ pictures from lifesaving.

If it can be of St Kilda members, great... but when I compare the total number of available ‘spectacular’ photos of St Kilda LSC vs some other clubs.... well we just haven’t spent as much time swimming as others.

Is this a good thing or bad?.... who’s to say. In the end I choose to believe that being ‘unspectacular’ results in less shots.... for many photographers going in and out straight is just plain boring.

Sure we’ve had a few swims... sure we try and extend our boundaries.... either way... enjoy!

This week the pic is of our Open Women around 2009/2010.... making this wave gave them the win!
Helene, Victoria Lally, Rachael Wills & Jeanette if I recall correctly.

We are having a break from Surf Boats for a few weeks to look back even further. We will be back in a couple of weeks with some more surf boats and our focus on our early female crews.

But for now, to keep things vaguely chronological, we really need to look back at our IRB team of the 1990’s

In the 1980’s St Kilda LSC was small. Really small..... the club had come as close to folding as anyone could imagine. (More on that in coming weeks)

As a result and only having a small patroling group and only having instructors in bronze, Leigh and Kristin Reither sought help from Royal life saving society (Mark Scott-RLSS boat squad) to attain their IRB drivers.

(At that time ‘Royal Life Saving’, had all the bay clubs and ‘Surf Life Saving’ all the coastal clubs. These two joined to form what we all now know as ‘Lifesaving Victoria’)

They were subsequently invited to join the RLSS boat squad to help at summer carnivals and their skills and love for IRB’s grew.

In the early 90’s the club had a insurgence of young members and started attending RLSS IRB camps.

As the members grew, the club started competing in summer carnivals, with good individual results but no club awards as we were going up against bigger and much more experienced and better equipped teams.

In 1995, the club looking to keep the momentum going , started IRB racing, as it is held in winter, thus allowing our limited membership to maintain patrolling duties at St Kilda over the summer patrol season.

In its first year of racing , stkilda came third overall and even hosted its first IRB carnival on St Kilda beach.

It was a good start and began (again) a period of great competitiveness for St Kilda LSC, which we will look into next week.

If you have been following our posts and pictures from the start of the surf boats at St Kilda LSC and these photos below, you will start to recognise some familiar faces.

Sure the hair was redder, longer and the rigs a little tidier, but the passion for ST Kilda LSC unquestionable. And, in reality, two of the major factors in St Kilda LSC’s continued existence are Leigh and Kristen Reither.

Both are Life Members and Leigh is still our resident IRB guru, captain, instructor and coach. If you see either about the club, don’t be afraid to say hello (and possibly thank you) and I’m sure you’ll hear about some great times (antics) of St Kilda LSC.

Mad Monday (Wacky Wednesday)....

No words needed. (Photo credit Scarlett Blewett)

Tune in for This weeks “Friday Flashback” where we will delve into the dominant ST Kilda IRB team of the 1990’s.

FRIDAY FLASHBACK #2

Following from last week it would be remiss not to mention our very first boat. The "Gippslander II" along with trailer and oars was donated to the club by Seaspray SLSC.

(Pictures 1 & 2)

The boat is now Orange and still sits outside the

Beachcomber Cafe on St Kilda Beach, the trailer we donated on to Apollo Bay, under a different boat and the oars..... Well one sits as a trophy in the club house above the office, in the entrance hall way, as a trophy to recognise all Victorian Open State Title gold medal winners. The remaining three are still in the club house and are only now pulled out for special occasions (Boat christenings).

A HUGE shout out and thank you to SEASPRAY SLSC. For without this gift, we would not have been able to start

Following this the boat area grew rappidly. Soon we needed a "tanked" boat (all the modern rage in the early 2000's) and purchased an old Fairhaven boat (The shark mouth), which the crew at the time sanded, loved, hugged and repainted under the old club house in 2002/2003. (Pic #3 & 4)
This boat we donated to France. I believe it is currently in Portugal or Spain.

Finally - Pic 5 is the men around the new boat at Mordialloc in 2003/2004.

Also early on (2003) St Kilda LSC was quick to take up female rowing. Only officially beginning in the late 90's (1995), many clubs were anti female crews, and in the early 2000's some of the more traditional surf boat rowing clubs had yet to develop womens crews. Having said that Victoria was blessed with many of the nations top female crews in Point Lonsdale, Portsea, Waratah Beach and Point Leo all making Aussie finals in the early years. So competing in the Open Female division was tough competition.

The first couple of 'Friday Flashbacks' have focused on our male crews, because it was these driving forces who started our area and rowed the first couple of years. But Next weeks "Friday Flashback" will focus on St Kildas first female crews to compete, who started very early.

Sorry for the delay.... but here’s a ‘Mad Monday’ pic.

This was the St Kilda Open Women at Ocean Thunder Surf Boat Series in NSW.
The crew- Shea Grant, Pip Tesselar, Megan McLeod, Jay Lambert and Matt Culka

The race before I’d asked the girls to try harder to catch the wave.... in this race, I didn’t want to catch the wave, but it was too late.

The boat was a trial modification boat and the result of all that was that it weighed 230kg as opposed to the 197kg of our competitors. And that extra 33kg was all in the nose!

In order to keep my dignity for at least another week.... I’ll save the rest of the shots in this sequence for next weeks ‘Mad Monday’