Kaitāia’s new world champ - shearer Flynn Harvey

World record shearing at Pohuetai, near Dannevirke, with shearers Flynn Harvey, from Kaitāia, Hemi Braddick and Ray Kinsman on their way to a new mark on Friday.

Averaging more than 70 sheep an hour, Kaitāia shearer Flynn Harvey has shorn his way to a new world record as part of a three-man team in Dannevirke.

Harvey, with Eketahuna shearer Hemi Braddick and Dannevirke-based Ray Kinsman, smashed the existing three-stand eight-hours record in a sweltering woolshed near Dannevirke on Friday.

Braddick, when he won an open final for the first time at Gisborne in 2022, had spoken of his hopes of one day taking part in a record attempt, so the trio thought they’d give it a crack.

Working for Dannevirke contractors Sutton Shearing, the trio targeted the 1611 sheep shorn by Luke Mullins (554), Eru Weeds (539) and James Mack (518) at Waitara Station, Te Pōhue, on January 17, 2017, 13 months after the previous record of 1347 was set, also in Hawke’s Bay.

Friday’s record attempt, according to World Sheep Shearing Records Society rules, comprised four two-hour runs, with half-hour breaks for morning and afternoon tea and a one-hour break for lunch.

Starting at 7am at Pohuetai, Braddick, Harvey and Kinsman each averaged more than 70 sheep an hour, and passed the 1611 target 35 minutes before the last sheep went down the shute just after 5pm.

Shearing record-makers, Flynn Harvey, from Kaitāia, Hemi Braddick and Ray Kinsman ahead of Friday's three-stand world bid south of Dannevirke.

A new record of 1745 was confirmed by the society’s refereeing panel convenor Dave Brooker, of South Australia, soon afterwards.

Attention over the last half an hour focused on Braddick’s bid for a personal tally of 600, having shorn successive tallies of 151, 148 and 150 in the first three of the four two-hour runs.

He missed by one, finishing on 599, Harvey sheared 581 and Kinsman 565, with a small number of shorn sheep rejected from the tallies during what was the seventh of eight record attempts in New Zealand from mid-December to mid-February, in the standard woolshed days of eight or nine hours and guided by sheep age and wool-weight requirements set by the records society.

Among those present was previous record-setter Mullins. Also watching were Gisborne farmer and shearer Catherine Mullooly, who sheared a women’s solo record of 465 last week, and Rowland Smith, of Maraekakaho, who sheared the men’s solo record of 644 in England in mid-2017.