The Palmerston North surf club keeps Himatangi safe

In the 1990s, Palmerston North's surfboat crews were unbeatable.

It is a standing quip in New Zealand surf lifesaving circles that the Palmerston North club is the only one without a beach.

Except that it has Himatangi Beach a mere half-hour’s drive away, closer than a million Aucklanders are to their lethal Piha.

And to reassure those who dip their toes at ‘‘Hima’’, the Palmerston North club has 100 members and growing, with a pool of up to 30 lifeguards, enough to also help out at Foxton Beach.

The club has history. Way back it provided lifeguards on the Manawatu¯ River when it was swimmable. Now when club chairman Alec Mackay addresses local bodies, he tells them in jest they ‘‘facilitate drowning’’ by building steps and walkways leading to rivers.

When Olympian Ian Ferguson was in the club for 10 years from 1966, it was the country’s best, had its own bus and competed in everything.

In the 1990s, Palmerston North’s surfboat crews were unbeatable. The club still sends members to the nationals, focusing most heavily on juniors.

In saving lives, surfboats have been replaced by inflatable rescue boats (IRBS), at $25,000 a pop plus a $7500 motor. Some clubs use jet skis but they’re too dangerous in big surf at Himatangi; they can be like a brick when they slow down.

Big surf at Hima is anything bigger than 1 metre, although nowhere near as lethal as Piha with its horrendous rips. I have always found Hot Water Beach a scary swim but the beach fine for heating one’s rear end while Mt Maunganui has defined waves unlike Himatangi’s, but the Mount’s dumpers can be no fun.

IRBS have their risks too; broken ankles and teeth when they and the crews turn turtle and soon helmets might become compulsory. These days swimmers are usually rescued with neoprone tubes and IRBS pick them up.

In dangerous conditions, a flotilla of IRBS can be parked out the back of the Himatangi surf.

This season’s sweltering summer has kept the club extra busy. It does more rescues than the Wellington clubs because the likes of Himatangi and Foxton have sandbars. Anyway, the Palmerston North club claims beaches at Wellington and O¯ taki ‘‘don’t have surf’’.

Surf builds up as it shallows and with Himatangi being flat, it is broken up by a series of bars. Rips run between the sandbars parallel to the beach and are very obvious at low tide.

Between the tides, a second beach is formed and those who venture 50 to 100 metres out can get into difficulty in the channel as the tide comes in. They can be dragged out to either end as the water looks for a place to escape.

Two Sundays back, the club had half a dozen lifeguards working in the channel.

On Wellington Anniversary Day 2013, there were 21 rescues at Himatangi because of rips and the flagged area couldn’t be kept safe, so the beach was closed. Three men swimming 500m from the flags almost drowned.

The rivers to the north of Himatangi all flow south, which means the coastline is one of the few still growing. As a result, the Palmerston North clubhouse is getting further from the beach.

This year, the water has been 6 degrees Celsius warmer than usual and the Tasman Sea is a hot spot compared with the Pacific. Himatangi is seldom cold because it is shallow and, because the water is so sandy, sharks are rare.

For freezing water, take a dip at Lyall Bay or Worser Bay in Wellington or in Wairarapa or the Taranaki beaches, which are deeper.

Mackay wouldn’t go into the surf for a rescue without a flotation device. Invariably, beachgoers who dash out to help end up drowning. People in their 40s or 50s frequently enter the water outside the flags with kids in tow and when trouble hits, find they’re not as fit as they once were.

With cars on beaches such as Himatangi, that can be a temptation to swim unguarded. Lifeguards warn off-piste wanderers to venture no deeper than their waists ‘‘or come and swim with us’’. Some strange humans even walk in wearing jeans; two have drowned there after taking drugs or booze.

Out from the 30kmh sign, there is always a nasty hole in the surf, which claimed a man in 2013. It was a beautiful January day with big surf running.

At Muriwai near Auckland last week, one numbskull was rescued three times in a day.

Unfortunately, learning to swim has become expensive and few primary schools have pools now. Luckily, the Palmerston North surf club has a relationship with the Lido complex to train up to 12 lifeguards a year, juniors with parents attached.

In the surf, pool swimmers don’t have a line on the bottom to follow, so in the sea they are encouraged to look up every seven strokes and to spot a landmark.

Our 74 surf clubs perform up to 1600 rescues a year, mostly outside the flags. Yet still the population is full of clots who think the red and yellow flags are there to make the beach look pretty.