Report by Caroline Makin, Club Captain
Eight Vikings had a terrific weekend at Tathra for the Wharf 2 Waves Ocean Swims on Sunday, 18 January 2015, with us gaining several podium finishes and top placings in the age group 600m events and also the 1200m open event.
Some of our members got together for a social BBQ on the Saturday evening, whilst others enjoyed the wonderful food at Fat Tony’s Bar & Grilll.
After the tragic shark attack at Tathra Beach last year, it was fantastic to see so many people (300 swimmers) participating in this superb local community event that is now in it’s 14th year of running. There was plenty of helicopter and fixed wing and on water police launch surveillance and we all felt very safe. The water clarity was high and with very little surf the flat conditions and warm water temperature of 21 degrees made for excellent swimming conditions.
It was noticeable this year the very high proportion of swimmers wearing wetsuits for both events, despite the warm water conditions. Some of our swimmers were amongst those who did not wear wetsuits and we saw Anne Smyth and Caroline Makin ranking very highly after swimming fast in both distances and noticeable in their regular swimming cosies amongst all the wetsuit-clad leaders!
Our swimmers’ results in age group order were as follows:
Caroline Makin – without wetsuit – 600m 40-49 age group 9:01 (1st/21), 1200m 19:22 (9th/40)
Lisa Moore – without wetsuit – 1200m 22:10 (22nd/40)
Anne Smyth – without wetsuit – 600m 50-59 age group 8:59 (2nd/18), 1200m 19:12 (8th/40)
Thomas Boyce – wetsuit – 600m 50-59 age group 8:54 (5th/34), 1200m 19:10 (8th/67)
Mandy Coggins – without wetsuit – 1200m 23:55 (29th/40)
Petrina Quinn – without wetsuit – 600m 50-59 age group 12:58 (10th/18), 1200m 27:46 (36th/40)
Brenda Day – wetsuit – 600m 60-69 age group 11:33 (1st/4)
Ian Hampton – wetsuit – 600m 60-69 age group 11:23 (7th/13), 1200m 25:40 (53rd/67)
Brenda Day was also awarded ‘squiggy club’ membership after completing 10 years of Wharf to Waves swims.
Full results are available and there is a nice article in the Bega District News with lots of photos from the event with our Vikings featuring in many of the pictures.
There is also a video shot with a Go Pro during the 600m event by one of the swimmers, Stan Gorton.
