Shearing: Five-stand eight-hour strong wool lamb world record smashed in Southland

The crowd at the Grant brothers' Campbell's Block woolshed in the Hokonui Hills for Sunday's five-stand shearing record, which saw 3236 lambs shorn in eight hours. Photo / Supplied

Five shearers, new to attempting records and comparatively unknown to the competition scene, have smashed a world record by 326 lambs in Southland.

Yesterday, the Forde Winders shearing crew of Trevor Holland, of New Plymouth, Max Winders, of Colac Bay, Trent Hewes, of Tuakau, Ben Boyle, of Invercargill, and Josef Winders, of Tussock Creek, set a new world five-stand eight-hour strong wool lamb record of 3236.

The previous record of 2910 was shorn in a King Country woolshed nine years ago by the Barrowcliffe shearing crew of Ringakaha Paewai, Willie Hewitson, Aidan Copp, Jock MacDonald and George Parker.

The Forde Winders crew shore four two-hour runs at the Grant brothers’ Campbell’s Block in the Hokonui Hills, west of Gore, starting at 7am and finishing at 5pm.

Their effort took place under the watchful eye of six World Sheep Shearing Record Society referees, a board, pen, gear, and diet and nutrition crew of more than 50.

There were also over 100 onlookers, who packed the woolshed to urge the five past the old mark, then past 3000 and, ultimately, Holland in the quest for a personal milestone, which he reached with the last catch – a personal tally of 701 for the day.

Needing a combined average of at least 727.75 per run to break the record, the shearers were always comfortably ahead of the required pace.

They tallied 816 in the first run (7am to 9am), 811 in the second run (9.30am to 11.30am), 809 in the third run (12.30pm to 2.30pm), and 800 in the final run (3pm to 5pm).

On Saturday, the referees, convened by Scottish official Andy Rankin, oversaw the pre-record wool weigh, where the fibre from 20 sample sheep totalled 23.708kg, an average of 1.1854kg a lamb and safely over the minimum requirement of 0.9kg of wool per lamb.

It’s estimated over 3.8 tonnes of wool was shorn during the day – more than 20 bales added to the country’s fleece of the great natural fibre.

Organisers paid particular tribute to the farmers for getting the sheep together for what is understood to have been the seventh-biggest tally in an official world record attempt for any number of shearers.

Individual tallies were: Holland (172, 179, 172, 178) 701; Max Winders (161, 161, 166, 162) 650; Hewes (164, 161, 167, 159) 651; Boyle (168, 159, 153, 150) 630; Josef Winders (151, 151, 151, 151) 604.

There have now been four successful record attempts in New Zealand this summer.

Next-up is that of the Sutton Shearing crew of Hemi Braddick, Ray Kinsman, and Flynn Harvey on the three-stand eight-hour lambs record of 1611 at Pohuetai Station, 516 Otope Road, Dannevirke, on Friday.