July 24, 2017
Green light for World shearing record
The weighting is over and it’s all systems go for Hawke’s Bay shearer Rowland Smith who will tackle the World solo
eight-hour strongwool ewe shearing record in England tonight (NZST).
A sample of 10 of the romney and crossbred flock, which has been drawn from four properties, have met the required
threshold of an average of at least 3kg of wool a sheep in a pre-record wool-weigh in front of four World Sheep Shearing
Record Society judges at Trefranck Farm, near St Clether, in Cornwall.
Shorn about 4am (NZST) the 10 sheep yielded 33.7kg of wool, the green light for the attempt to start at 6pm today (NZST)
– 7amin the UK – before judges Eddie Archur, of Spouth Africa,, Johnny Fraser, of New Zealand, and Welsh officials Arwyn
Jones and Martyn David.
Shearing four two-hour runs, separated by a one-hour lunch-break and half-hour breaks for morning and afternoon smoko,
Smith is attempting a record of 605, which was set by Southland shearer Leon Samuels in a woolshed north of Gore on
February 20 this year.
It will require an average of at least 75.75 sheep an hour, or a sheep caught, shorn and despatched about every 47
seconds, in the same shed as Smith’s brother, Matthew Smith, who farms at Trefranck, set the ultimate nine-hour record
of 731 on July 26 last year.
In his record, Samuels shore runs of 149, 153, 151 and 152, beating by just two sheep the previous record of 603 set by
Te Kuiti shearer Stacey Te Huia in 2010. In his record a year ago, Matthew Smith opened with a record two-hour run of
164.
Based on the standard eight-hour day as shorn in New Zealand woolsheds, the runs tonight will be from 6pm to 8pm
(7am-9amUK), 8.30pm to 10.30pm (9.30am-11.30am UK), 12.30pm to 2.30am (12.30pm-1.30pm UK), and 2am to 4am (3pm-5pm UK).
The record will be live-streamed at https://agricamera.co.uk/sheep-shearing-live-stream/
View facebook footage of the wool-weigh at Rowland Smith’s 8-hour StrongwoolWorld Ewe Shearing Record Attempt
ENDS