Beefed up rookies ready

By JAMIE TROUGHTON
They pack as much beef into a boat as the last meat shipment to Britain and most of them are more at home in sprigs than speedos.
But Mount Lifeguard Service's yellow crew hope to turn their rookie status into realistic title contention at this weekend's Northern Regional Championships on their home beach.
Boat skipper Justin Scholes, although an experienced surf athlete, only took up the boat blades last season with the Mount crew who finished second at the national championships.
This year when it came time to pick his own crew, the former Tauranga Sports rugby No 8 went straight to the source of big, strong lads able to wield an oar amid a raging sea ... the Tauranga Sports scrum.
Lock Peter Linde, weighing in at 110kg, and his 125kg lock/flanker teammate Kent Rae jumped at the chance.
"I finished the rugby season and was pretty keen to do something different over summer, and this came up," Linde, a town planner with Simpson Grierson, said.
Together with former rower Richard Saunders and 17-year-old sweep Dan Matuschka, the crew have steadily built throughout the summer, making the final of the latest round of the Trillian Trust Surf Boat Series in Whangamata.
Marty Wouters, who rows with the club's white crew, fills in occasionally and reckons that what they lack in technique, the yellow boat more than makes up for in strength.
"They can put some power into the blade - I've never seen anyone bend a blade like Kent!" Wouters said. "The blades aren't even supposed to flex but there's a lot of beast behind it!"
Mount are the defending club champions at the NRCs, having pipped Midway by a solitary point last year, and Scholes is hoping his crew do their bit to ensure that same success.
"We want to be competitive and we're doing enough to get some reasonable results, which for a novice crew, we're stoked with," the Tauranga accountant said.
"We definitely want to make the A final. We've proven to ourselves we can make it and there's a swell supposed to be coming so it can be anyone's race."
Matuschka, an apprentice builder working for club stalwart Kent Jarman, is the youngest sweep in the country by more than a decade and Scholes believes if he sticks with it, he can become the very best.
For Saunders, a 23-year-old engineer with Matrixx Consultants, powering the surf boats is far more fun than rowing hundreds of kilometres on flatwater arenas.
"It's a lot more relaxed and offers more of a pleasant lifestyle than skiff rowing - it doesn't seem to be all about winning, winning, winning," Saunders said. "The other day we were out training and cruised along beside a pod of dolphins - that sort of thing definitely has its appeal."
All the crew are qualified lifeguards and Scholes said their club spirit will be a big advantage on the beach this weekend.
"There can be a bit of segregation between the boaties and everyone else but we're trying to work towards bringing everyone back together," Scholes said.
"Last year when we won that club title by one point, it was amazing. We were all as one and the support from the whole club was fantastic."
The competition runs at the Mount Main Beach on both Saturday and Sunday from 8am, with more than 110 events and races on the schedule. are The event is now in its 37th year.