ANZACs to establish Surf Life Saving in Gallipoli

ANZACs to establish Surf Life Saving movement in Gallipoli

A Wellington Surf Life Saving Club has been selected as part of a momentous ANZAC project to establish a Surf Life Saving movement in Turkey. The Lyall Bay Surf Life Saving Club will join three Australian Surf Life Saving Clubs to travel to Turkey in August this year. Their aim this time is to introduce Surf Life Saving to Turkey and to train young Turkish men and women for their future roles as Surf Lifeguards.

On the morning of 25 April 1915, Turkish Soldiers determined to protect their motherland, watched boatloads of ANZAC soldiers approach the Gallipoli beaches. What was to follow was bloody, horrific, and the stuff of legend. Remarkably it forged a brotherhood between the nations of New Zealand, Australia and Turkey.

Now the grandchildren of those soldiers are returning to Gallipoli to further enhance the spirit of friendship that exists between the ANZACs and the Turkish people.

Surf Life Saving Tour – August 2010

Lyall Bay Surf Life Saving Club will send a team of twelve Surf Lifeguards to participate alongside three Australian clubs and will provide two demonstration Surf Life Saving carnivals in Turkey in August this year.

The team is: Martin Robinson (Manager), Dylan McKee, Arie Moore, Brad Lawson, Alex Weir, Ray Stoddart, Nicole Taylor, Leza Papps, Amy McMullan, Mike O’Connor, Kelsey Moffatt and Chantelle Cowlrick.

“This is an incredible opportunity for Lyall Bay. The ability to travel to Gallipoli, a place so close to the hearts of everyone, and give something back to the Turkish people is an opportunity no to be missed,” said Arie Moore Lyall Bay Surf Life Saving Club Captain.

The team will participate in a lifesaving carnival on BURC Beach on the Black Sea and the other on the Aegean Sea near ANZAC cove, as well as the annual swim race across the Dardanelles, a 4 km swim from the Europe side of the Dardanelles to the Asia side. The team is expected to train local volunteers in the use of surf boats, skis, boards, and basic lifesaving skills and also host local schools instructing school children in water safety.

The intention is to provide an impetus for the establishment of surf lifesaving clubs in Turkey, with the surf boats, and other surf lifesaving gear shipped over being gifted to the Turkish community at the end of the tour.

Additionally the teams will attend the first ever surf club service at the site of an early surf club member who is buried at Gallipoli, and a service with a surf boat depicting the landing of the long boats coming ashore to Gallipoli 95 years ago.

The trip is a lead up to the Gallipoli 100 event in 2015. The 100th anniversary of the ANZAC’s landing at Gallipoli will be commemorated by a special event dubbed The Gallipoli 100 - a 100 kilometre surf boat race featuring 100 surf boats manned by Australian, New Zealand (and potentially Turkish) Surf Life Guards. The surf boats are very similar to the long boats that carried the original soldiers back in 1915.

“One hundred years, 100 surf boats and 100 kilometres - the race has massive significance, especially to Lyall Bay with our centenary celebrations looming this year.” – Arie Moore, Club Captain.

Each surfboat will contain returned servicemen and their representatives from Australia and New Zealand who will land on the beach to shake hands with representatives of Turkish returned servicemen.

Lyall Bay Surf and Life Saving Club

This is an exciting opportunity for Lyall Bay Surf Life Saving Club - it is also very appropriate being the first surf lifesaving club to patrol in New Zealand and celebrating its own centenary in 2010.

ANZAC soldier Sir Bernard Freyberg, Victoria Cross recipient, was a founding member of Lyall Bay Surf Lifesaving Club. In April 1915, Freyberg, as part of the Gallipoli landing force volunteered to swim across the Dardanelles and let off flares to divert the Turks' attention from the main landing. Despite coming under heavy Turkish fire, he returned safely from this outing, and for his action he received the Distinguished Service Order.

“What makes this even more meaningful for Lyall Bay is that Sir Freyberg was one of our founding member’s and on the inaugural committee of the Club. The fact this opportunity occurs within a week of our Centenary and Lyall Bay’s first committee meeting makes this trip even more significant to our Club.” – Arie Moore, Club Captain.

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