Red Beach the first-ever international surf boat crew to win gold at the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships

Red Beach’s Cab Savs boat crew have written themselves in the history book with their success at the Australian Titles on the Gold Coast.
Competing at Kurrawa in the final of the Masters 200 division, the crew of Chris McCullough, Gordon Williams, Duncan Reid and Nick Laurie crossed the finish line in first place to become the first-ever international surf boat crew to win an Australian gold medal.

The crew made a flying start in the heats, picking up two firsts and a second in the division which attracted 22 crews.  The elimination round saw them place third which was enough to take them through to the semi-final where they finished third.

In the final, the Cab Savs lined up on buoy 5.  To their left were last year’s champion crew South Curl Curl while on their right were Forster, the NSW age group champions.
“Conditions had evened out from the previous day of heats, however, the surf was at 1.5 metres and there were some big sets coming through,” said Red Beach boat captain Chris McCullough.

“We had a clean start and led through the surf line with some big calls being made by sweep Monty.
We went into the turn first although came out of it level with South Curl Curl and Forster,” he added.

From halfway home, all three boats were on the same wave.  With just 100m to run, the Forster boat broached and flipped off the wave, leaving Red Beach and South Curl Curl to slug it out.

When the Cab Savs managed to punch through a wave, South Curl Curl were held back.  Sweep Monty then called for a huge effort to get over the hump of the wave in front of them.  South Curl Curl began to come through, only to get caught in the wave hump.  Red Beach then went on to cross the finish line and win by 1 ½ - 2 boat lengths.

“It was a great race and the Aussies were very complimentary to us on our win,” said McCullough who expressed appreciation to Jase Bean of South Coast Boats for the loan of his boat.  “It was a beauty;  it was like we were using our own boat.”