SURF LIFESAVING - Wave of women take over

ONCE IT was the domain of hulking blokes on the end of an oar. Tomorrow the surfboat arena at the Trillian Trust Northern Surf Lifesaving Championships at Ruakaka will be awash with feminine charm.
For the first time in the 75-year history of the championships there will be more women's crews lining up at Ruakaka than men's crews.
That's a reason to start celebrating, says Maree Kelly, the surf sports development officer at Northern Region headquarters in Auckland.
"Having more women's crews than men is a bit of a first, but it is fantastic for the sport I think," Kelly says.
"Women like the team aspect of the sport. It comes back to that need to work as a team in a surfboat and the women seem to thrive on that.
"Certainly surfboats have had a bit of a resurgence in the past few years and the women have been a big part of that."
Twelve women's crews will line up for the two-day event starting at Ruakaka tomorrow, many of them aiming for glory at the national surf-lifesaving championships to be held at Ohope Beach in Whakatane next month.
There are eight men's open crews and a handful of junior boys' crews.
In all there will be more than 300 competitors on the beach for a variety of events that include surf swimming and board rescue.
The feature events are the ironman and ironwoman races on Sunday and the surfboat finals on Sunday morning. Because many elite surf lifesaving competitors are at present competing in Australia, the bulk of the action will be in the under-16 and under-19 categories.
There are individual honours for each discipline.
A points series held over the two days will decide the best competitive club _ that usually comes down to a hard-out clash between Red Beach and Orewa, two clubs based on the Hibiscus Coast north of Auckland.
But Northland will be in the running. The Ruakaka club has 16 competitors lining up and the Whangarei Heads club 12.
The action starts tomorrow at 9am and on Sunday begins with a march-past at 8.30am.