Portsea Surf Boats Succeed in the George Bass Marathon
January 15, 2025
Last weekend was an energy-packed affair over on the west coast where members of our Portsea Competition Team showed their colours in the Lorne Pier to Pub on Saturday then joined forces at the Anglesea Youth/Senior Carnival on Sunday.
The weather and conditions at Lorne were near perfect. The day kicked off with the junior men racing, where Logan Brandi and Archer Larke placed in the top 10. In the women’s junior 1.2km event, Sophie Jacka looked to have the race in the bag when two young Anglesea swimmers ran up the beach together to push her back into the bronze medal position, with Amber Larke squeeing into the top 20 with her 18th position.
Next up were the age group master swimmers. Anthony Purcell placed 6th and Sue Crow 8th in the Super Veterans categories.
The grand finale of the day was the Superfish races. The women went off first, led the whole distance by Olympic Gold Medallist Lani Pallister. This year’s swim saw tight, competitive racing in both the male and female categories and Lani’s win by more than a minute in 2024 was not to be repeated, with the first four women all within 30 secs of the champ. Mackie Hunter placed 3rd, with Sophie Jacka just behind in a fast-finishing 4th place. Amber Larke also doubled up in the Superfish, placing 20th in the open women’s category.
The men’s Superfish field included four of our Portsea swimmers, with Xavier Purcell crossing in 7th place, Harvey Larke in 9th and Campbell Wilson-Moran in 12th. Logan Brandi swam into a gallant 24th place after sustaining an elbow to the nose in the sprint at the start. He’ll be off to the ENT surgeon this week for a ‘straighten-up’ operation.
No sooner had the race finished when the celebrations started, our up-and-coming ocean swimmers mingling with Olympic stars including Sam Short, Nick Sloman, Sam Williamson, and of course Lani. A big thanks to Oscar Hunter and Finn Nicholas who helped with the IRB water safety and joined in the partying til all hours. Thor Mogensen, the Danish lifeguard currently being hosted by Portsea also swam the iconic race to take home fond memories of his journey around the Great Ocean Road.
The athletes bounced out of bed early the next day to head to the Anglesea carnival, joined by the cohort who travelled over on the ferry. ‘Event of the Day’ award goes to U13 Frankie Hart and U14 Ted Barnaby who managed to talk their way into the U14 Boys 2 x 1km beach run and take home the pennants. Frankie also won her U13 beach flags, and Ed place 3rd in the U14 boys. Down in the ocean, Charlie Cornwell used the opportunity to race the open men, Harvey and Xavier went 1,2 in the swim, followed by Archer and Charlie. Mackie placed 2nd in the women’s swim as a young sprinter caught a wave and flew past her running up the beach. Annabelle Mahon added valuable club points with her 6th place in the U17 Surf Race and Charlotte Mahon demonstrated her big improvements on the surf ski. Last event of the day was the Open Women’s Belt race where Mackie Hunter relied on her trusty line team from the Mahon family, including our club president, plus Chloe Cornwell, to bring home the pennants.
Thanks to all who helped out, raced, cheered and supported our aquatic sports athletes – Stu Larke for set up, Anthony as team manager, Chloe and Nat for official duties, and Cam Hunter for equipment logistics.
