Shearing legends celebration in Porangahau

The shearing gang after setting a World record at Mangaorapa, near Porangahau, in December 1970: Ivan Thompson (back left), John Wakefield, Alex Hira, and Ashley Petuha, and Ratima Waihape (front left), John Harmer, Jim Hutcheson and Sonny Metekingi. Photo / Supplied

A gathering of shearing legends that had been scheduled for this weekend has been hit by the bane of the shearing industry since the first sheep were shorn: The rain.

“It’s been postponed because of the weather,” said event host Angela Houkamau, proprietor of The Duke hotel in Porangahau, where more than 170mm of rain has been recorded in the last week.

The first Legends of Yesteryear, billed as a chance to see shearing legends in action and hear their stories of shearing history, has been postponed by seven days, and is now scheduled for January 21.

The Porangahau area has a particularly strong shearing history with its shearing gangs and surrounding sheep stations. As well as spinning (verbal) yarns, the shearers will have the chance to relive some of the battles of yesteryear, with shearing events for veteran age groups, including 76 years and Over.

Among the memories to be shared will be those of December 5, 1970, when the community rallied at Mangaorapa Station for an attempt on the World eight-stand lambshearing record for nine hours.

Contractor Ashley Petuha’s gang set a record of 3316, which has gone unchallenged in the 52 years since and which according to World Sheep Shearing Records Society secretary Hugh McCarroll, of Tauranga, could remain that way given the decline in the sheep population and the consequent near disappearance of the nine-hour regime from the shearing of larger-sized gang work-days in the woolshed.

The tallies were headed by the 439 shorn by John Wakefield, and the other shearers were John Harmer (433), Ivan Thompson (432), Jim Hutcheson (424), Ashley Petuha (415), Alex Hira (414), Sonny Metekingi (390), and Ratima Waihape (369).

Beating the previous record of 3226, shorn at East Coast station Huiarau on November 30, 1968, which was the first World shearing record attempt following the introduction of recognised rules in June that year and with the appointment of Wool Board-approved shearing judges, the Mangaorapa record remains the highest officially-recorded eight-stand lambshearing tally for nine hours.

The records structure was revised in the early 1980s, and the World Sheep Shearing Records Society, established in 2004 is now the internationally accepted governing body, listing just the 1968 and 1970 records in its archives for the category.

Porangahau was also the home of Rodney Sutton, now Dannevirke-based as a contractor and shearer.

Sutton held both the world solo nine-hours lambs and ewe–shearing records, shorn respectively near Taupo in 2000 and in the King Country in 2007.

Many Porangahau families have also crossed the Tasman and now significantly populate the shearing towns of Australia.

The Legends of Yesteryear event revives the shearing involvement of The Duke (the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel), which for several years hosted an annual holiday-season speedshear, attracting some of the fastest shearers in New Zealand and last held about seven years ago.