COMPETITORS from Portsea Surf Life Saving Club and Seaford Life Saving Club headed to Anglesea for the second 2022 TRE Motorsport inflatable rescue boat Premiership Season on Sunday 22 May.
Portsea and Seaford’s competitors joined 14 other clubs from across the state who showed off their skills in small but consistent waves, using one of the most popular pieces of modern lifesaving rescue equipment in a competitive setting.
Portsea’s under-23 men’s IRB tube rescue team – Niklas Rathmayr, Finn Nicholas and Andrew May – won its division and came second in the open event, behind Barwon Heads 13th Beach.
The team’s results helped the club to come seventh in the under-23 division, eighth in the open and eighth for the combined score tally.
LSV manager aquatic sport Simon Butterly said IRB racing was a thrilling spectator sport “but facing these conditions is also great practice for our lifesavers, who are the same lifesavers you see on patrol across the state during the summer”.
“The IRB is known as the workhorse of lifesaving rescue equipment, used for rescue, retrieval and surveillance, and were used for 142 rescues during the 2021-22 Victorian patrol season.”
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 31 May 2022
