Sunset Beach Lifeguards travelled to the Australia IRB Championships 2017 - Kingscliff Beach, NSW

Sunset Beach Lifeguard Service had 4 teams travel to Australia to compete in the 2017 Australian IRB Championships held at Kingscliff Beach, NSW, 14th to 16th July.   Competitors were: Shane Edwards, Mark Edwards, Taylor Shrimpton, Robbie Shrimpton, Hogan Shrimpton, Judd Redmond, Jemima Ferrier, Olivia Andrews, Lola Key, Samantha-Jane Harding and Samantha Coughlan.

With Australian IRB Nationals up 20% in participation, 164 men's teams, 83 women's teams, our teams did very well and we can be proud of these results. North Burleigh took out the Top Club award again for the 5th year in a row, congratulations to them and thanks for supporting our crews.

Here is the final results:
Male tube rescue semi final - Shane and Mark Patient Taylor 7th
Male teams semi final - Shane Edwards, Mark Edwards, Hogan Shrimpton and Judd Redmond (Patient)
Female team semi final – Taylor Shrimpton Jemima Ferrier, Robbie Shrimpton, Olivia Andrews, Samantha-Jane (Patient) 6th
Female Mass semi final –Taylor, Jemima, Patients Lola and Judd 2nd
Female Mass final 7th

Composite Relay team sunset and New Plymouth old boys 3rd in semi final but not allowed to race in final as composite team

The team is hosted and given loan gear from North Burleigh Surf Life Saving Club.  A very big thank you for their support of our teams and congratulations to North Burleigh who were awarded Top Australian Club for the 5th year in a row.  The experience our teams gain from going to the Australian competitions is invaluable when it comes to experiencing and learning new techniques,  challenging themselves with different equipment and working on improving techniques from last years trip certainly paid off this year. Let’s hope Sunset Beach can continue their run at New Zealand Championships this coming season. 

2017 Northern Region Surf Life Saving Awards of Excellence

Trust Waikato Sunset Beach Lifeguards attended the 2017 Northern Region Awards of Excellence on Saturday 12th August at Shed 10, Auckland.

MC for the night was Malcolm Beattie who did a great job of getting through the night and all the awards up for contention.  Sunset had finalist nominations for:

Competition Team of the year – Taylor Shrimpton, Jemima Ferrier and Eva Imrie
Outstanding Contribution to Power Craft – Shane Edwards
Coach of the Year – Shane Edwards

Sunset beach had the winning finalists for Competition Team of the Year and Outstanding Contribution to Power Craft.  Our very big congratulations and well deserved for all the hard work put in.  We applaud that your efforts were recognised and were obviously popular recipients.

We were also presented the Trophy for Northern Region IRB Champions and Carolyn Edwards was recognised for her contribution to surf lifesaving with a Service Award.

Once again an outstanding result for our club members and supporters.  Congratulations to the award recipients!
 

Trust Waikato Sunset Beach Lifeguard Service Wins Top Club at Surf Life Saving NZ BP Surf Rescue Championships at Waipu Cove.

What a perfect way to end the season and retain the New Zealand Top Club Trophy for Surf Rescue.  Day two of the Surf Life Saving New Zealand BP Surf Rescue Championships saw Sunset securing 95 points to take the win from St Clair on 60 points.  Here is a link to Surf Lifesavings NZ media release: http://www.surflifesaving.org.nz/sport/news/details?f=2017/april/back-to-back-titles-for-bp-new-zealand-irb-championships-winner/

Trust Waikato Sunset Beach having been top club last season, were on show on TV 3 news hub on Saturday night, here is the link: http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/sport/2017/04/surf-clubs-gunning-for-success-at-national-lifesaving-championships.html

Lewis Powell and Hogan Shrimpton were awarded the prestigious Arancia Trophy for Top Premier Team.  They also won the Housiaux Trophy for Premier Assembly and the Don Wright Cup for the Premier Single Rescue.  Shane and Mark Edwards missed out on the Top Premier Team by 1 point, what a close battle, the points could have swung either way.   This means Sunset Beach have the two top Premier teams in New Zealand.  What an achievement for our club.  Lewis and Hogan had 2 Gold and 1 silver medal.  Shane and Mark have 1 gold and two silver.  The two teams combined in the open teams race to win Silver medal, just piped at the post for some exciting racing.

Taylor Shrimpton retained her Top New Zealand Women’s Crew title with her crewman Jemima Ferrier.  This back to back win comes after a fantastic year of racing with new crewman Jemima.  Taylor and Jemima won 3 gold medals.  Robbie Shrimpton and Olivia Andrew won silver medal in the tube rescue and placed in another final.  This was their first year paired as a team and were well rewarded.

U21 Men had finals placings adding to the teams points.  Anton Baptist and Robert Graham earned silver medal in the Mass Rescue and stood on the podiemwith Judd Redmond and Jhett Hunt who won bronze.  Judd and Jhettalso won bronze in the Single rescue.

This back to back win feels one better than last year with our Premier Men’s teams stepping up and grabbing the title with excellent performances along with the Sunset women’s crews and other team points.  The win was never going to be a given with Sunset Beach on even points with St Clair after day 1. 

These were well deserved wins with hard work put into the training and management of these teams. Big ‘Thank you’ to Shane Edwards for all his hard work as coach and team captain.  Carolyn Edwards for her mangers role.  All the support crew Jonathan Ferrier, Steve Edwards, Jeff Shrimpton, Glennys Smith, Samantha Coughlan, Caitlin Stuart and Alex Stuart . The Officials, Robert Key and Roanne Gordan.  Our president Malcolm Beattie and the clubs committee have shown fantastic support.  There are many more who helped get these teams to best in New Zealand, we thank you all.

We would like to thank our sponsors Toyota Financial Services, Tuakau ITM, NZCT and Trust Waikato who have helped make this all possible.

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Sunset Beach Surf Boat Crews take National Titles at the 2017 TSB Bank New Zealand Surf Life Saving Championships

Sunset Beach Surf Boat Crews take National Titles at the  2017 TSB Bank New Zealand Surf Life Saving Championships held in Christchurch at New Brighton Beach, 17th - 19th March 2017

The Sunset Young Guns had superb conditions and weather at New Brighton to compete for the U19 Men’s Surf Boat Short Course and Long Course Titles. Having already earned the U19 Men’s NZ Surf Boat Series Gold Medal, they were hopeful to do well at Nationals.  The Sunset Hipsters were hot on their tales with Silver Medal for the U19 Men’s NZ Surf Boat Series.

The two teams from Sunset Beach have had an excellent year, trained hard and put in the hours on the Waikato River at Tuakau.  Their results at the Championships were outstanding.

The Sunset Young Guns are now the NZ U19 Men’s Surf Boat Champions. They performed well over their 5 races for each event and were awarded Gold medal for the Short Course and Gold for the Long Course.  The Sunset Hipsters chased hard and were awarded Silver medal in both the Short and Long Course events.  This made it a clean sweep for the Sunset Beach crews.

Ted Marsh (Coach and Sweep for the Young Guns) was immensely proud, “We had quite a bit of nerves going into Nationals.  It’s taken 5 years of dedication from this young team who started rowing at 14 years old to get to this standard to win the Gold Medals.  Last year we settled for Silver but were determined that wasn’t going to happen this year.  The wins were popular with the crowd with most of the boaties present at the ceremony having watched this team improve over the years.  A huge cheer went up, congratulating them on their win”.

The Sunset Hipsters with Mikey Waldegrave as Sweep had an excellent performance to earn the silver medals.  This being only their second year of rowing, we figure there must be a good amount of friendly rivalry between these two teams to enhance performance to do well.

Picture:  Sunset Young Guns on the podiem in first place with Sunset Hipsters in second

North Island BP Surf Rescue Champions

Sunset Beach Lifeguards Defended their title for Top Club.  Tough day out... with 87 points for Sunset and 71 points for Papamoa, Sunset Beach retained their North Island BP Surf Rescue Champions Title.  The annual event drew in 144 entries in the form of 63 crews from 12 different clubs around the country, including locals East End, Fitzroy, New Plymouth Old Boys and Opunake.  In flat conditions but some tough starting positions, Sunset earned 6 gold medals, 4 silver medals, 1 bronze medal. These were spread across U21 Men, Women, Open Men’s and Premier grades.

Taylor Shrimpton and crewman Jemima Ferrier won all their races, 3 Gold medals and were most consistent of the 11 women’s crews competing on the day.

Brothers Shane and Mark Edwards with patient Samantha-Jane Harding earned Gold in the final of the Premier men’s Assembly Rescue final taking on the elite of IRB racing.  Lewis Powell and Shane Edwards then combined to win Gold in the Tube Rescue for the Premier Men’s final after Mark Edwards was injured.

Senior Men’s team won gold in the Senior Men’s Tube Rescue (Jacob Pullen, Joshua Andrews and S J Harding) and with two Silver Medals were a real threat to some seasoned racers in their events.

In the U21 Men’s we had two teams competing.  Judd Redmond, Jhett Hunt, (Patients: Olis Fruh, SJ Harding, Carla Janse Van Resburg) won Silver in the Mass rescue.    Both teams have promise for the NZ Champs early April.

“It’s really great, we are feeling really good because it was touch and go for a while, with Papamoa right on our tails, so that kept us honest and working hard”, Shane Edwards.

Hard day at the office with Single Resues finals being cancelled for the day due to low tide.  Crews now have six weeks to build up to the 2017 BP Surf Rescue New Zealand Championships which are set to be held at Waipu Cove in Northland from April 1-2.

"We're sure to see these, and other crews from around the country, battle it out to become New Zealand's top IRB club," Event Manager, Todd Velvin

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