Commenced at Batemans Bay on January 3rd and finished 7 days later in Eden - 180 kilometres south of the Bay. It is the longest, toughest surf boat race in open sea in the world - and is again being sponsored by the Australian Navy. The Navy supports the Australian Surf Rower League and this Marathon because of an alignment of many of the attributes of surf rowing and the Navy itself (not dissimilar to the Brits and their forces with yachting!). Some 28 teams competed from around Oz including a team from Holland this year.
It was a comfortable and clean start at the Bay, but each day bought it's problems with hyopthermia, exhaustion etc.
A Ladies team faces a wipeout here
The surf was really up
The team below were this year's winners - THE CANBERRA VIKINGS
Now this raises a large question - there ain't no surf in Canberra, just a very large lake!! I suspect these Viking's get all their practice down at the Bay's beaches, some 2 hours across the Clyde Mountains west of Canberra. Now the winners of the Ladies teams was also from Canberra, but they were partnered in the surfboat by members from the Queensland Caloundra (a beach near Noosa) team.
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