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    • Waves of Pain
      • No Respect!
      • Death Wish at Fairy Bower
      • Fried nuts
      • The ocean is a trickster… especially Hawaii’s North Shore – Gas chambers bites the unwary!
      • Titus Kinimaka’s nightmare Christmas
      • Dix dumped – the trials of a self-confessed elite body surfer
      • The little surf that nearly ruined a promising career…
      • Rabbit killer – a master takes a caning at pipeline!
      • Death Wish at Fairy Bower
      • Easternmost memory – surfing in the wild at the end of the continent
      • Nothing ruins a good surf like a couple of blokes with automatic assault rifles…
      • Agony for Miki Dora
      • Smashed at Gas Chambers
      • Who was Europe’s first surfing woman? Introducing the wonderful Witch of Newbury.
      • A bad day at Palmy – surfies and clubbies at war!
      • When being a proven waterman is not enough!
      • The highs and lows of surfing Sunset Beach while competing at the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational
      • An American midnight surf – that goes very wrong!
  • What does it mean?
    • What is a snake?
    • What does “shag” mean?
    • What does “Freddy Jones” mean?
    • What does “hook and ladder” mean?
    • What does back walk-over mean?
  • Philosophers Sport Bar
    • Socrates and Aristotle debate football defence
    • Michel de Montaigne on coaching sports
    • Ancient philosophers discuss what makes the beautiful game beautiful! Laozi and Socrates get technical.

Death Wish at Fairy Bower

February 9, 2017 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment Filed Under: Waves of Pain

Fairy Bower – sissy by name, gnarly by nature

Once in a blue moon the surf on Sydney’s northern beaches gets so big that it is virtually impossible to go surfing. Just about the last rideable spot on a huge day is the point break near Manly incongruously known as Fairy Bower. If the swell gets up and over eighteen or twenty feet, as a general rule, “The Bower” is the only place with deep enough water to hold up the waves and with a deep enough channel to enable the paddle out into the line-up. Even so, on such a day, it is very much an experts-only spot.

bower2
On a peaceful day like this it is hard to imagine how dangerous Fairy Bower can become. When the ocean near Sydney becomes wild enough the Bower is just about the only place open for action.

A proverbial Fairy Bower big day

March 27, 1966 was just such a day. With massive swells pounding Sydney’s beaches closing out the finest surfing locations, the north side’s most experienced and talented surfers converged upon “The Bower” to challenge the fifteen, twenty and maybe even twenty-five foot monsters the spot was dishing up. Horror wipe outs were the order of the day but some surfers made their names by challenging and riding these mountainous walls of water.

Look! Out in the water. It’s a surfoplane? It’s a recue board? No. It’s a surf boat.

While the hundreds of spectators on the headland above the line-up were, initially, thrilled by the action in the water, they were gobsmacked when the incredibly brave but clearly suicidal crew of the Palm Beach Surf Boat decided to test their skills in some of the biggest waves to hit Sydney in a decade. An Australian surf boat is a seven-metre long, pointy at both ends, rowing vessel which carries four oarsmen and a fifth oarsmen (known as the sweep) who steers the boat with his oar from the rear of the boat. While these boats were specifically designed for surf use it is hard to imagine that anyone foresaw their use in twenty foot plus breaking waves.

bower3
On the right (or wrong) day, The Bower is a gnarly spot.

The boat crew did not muck around. On the order of their captain, John Windshuttle, they attempted to row on to the face of a several huge waves. On their third try, they were successful and all of the surfers in the water and spectators on the headland must have held their breath as the large rowing boat screamed down the face of what was probably a twenty-five foot wave. Unfortunately, that was the end of the surf boat. In a mess of flying bodies, oars and churning white water the surf boat was smashed into firewood by the ferocious surf. Luckily, all members of the crew survived what might have been the most amazing wipe-out Sydney beaches had ever seen.

1966_Cabbage_Tree1_Bower_Brawley_p148
What a wicked waste of a surf boat?

Bye-bye surf boat  

Despite a degree of admiration for the crew’s heroics, the Palm Beach Surf Club held an inquiry into the actions of the captain and crew on that mad day as the club committee tried to figure out where they would get the funds for a new surf boat!

 

 

TIMOTHY EDWARDS

Tim Edwards has had a completely rubbish sporting career so it is odd that he seems so obsessed with sport and adventuring. As a basketball shooting guard he had an okay jump shot but couldn't do anything else. As a rugby hooker he spent more time puking then actually playing. As a runner he won an awful lot of consolation prize chocolates for coming fourth but almost never won a ribbon. Despite his inadequacies he still loves sport and has opinions on almost any sporting subject. Tim has spent large parts of his working life in publishing and writing roles and has even done his share of teaching sport management to Uni students. He has coached more sports teams than he cares to remember. Tim is an awful surfer and skier but his lack of competence does not bother him one little bit!

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