A livestream view of the record-setting shearers across the board from Stand 1: Rose Lewis (left), Missy Te Whata, Te Atakura Crawford, and Pagan Rimene.
A livestream view of the record-setting shearers across the board from Stand 1: Rose Lewis (left), Missy Te Whata, Te Atakura Crawford, and Pagan Rimene.
In a South Otago woolshed, four female shearers powered home to set a world record of well over 1900 lambs shorn in eight hours.
Starting the four‑stand Women’s eight‑hour strongwool lamb record attempt at 7.30am on a cold morning at Melrose Station near Owaka, and finishing at 5.30pm, the quartet— all steeped in multiple generations of East Coast (North Island) shearing heritage — were credited with an official tally of 1938.
Three of the four averaged under a minute per lamb, from catch to shear, to out the porthole.
Te Atakura Crawford, from Gisborne topped the tallies with 530, at 54.34 seconds per lamb, caught, shorn and through the porthole.
There was no previous record for the category in a register of more than 40 recognised by the World Sheep Shearing Records Society.
But the trailblazers collectively shore more in each two-hour run than the 473 shorn in the only two-hour run of a four-stand women’s nine-hour record of 2066.
That record was at Waihi Pukawa Station, near the shores of Lake Taupō in the Central North Island, in January 2020.
Te Whata grew up around Mossburn in Southland and is the niece of two world record holders.
Master Woolhandler and 2019 World Teams Woolhandling Champion Pagan Rimene, of Alexandra, shore 481.
Rimene is the daughter of former world record holder Dion Morrell and world champion woolhandler Tina Rimene.
The other 423 were accredited to grandmother Rose Lewis, from Manūtūke on the East Coast.
In 2008, Rimene broke her back in a van crash, once saying a specialist had told her the strength of her back from shearing enabled her dramatic recovery.
Increasing the pace all day, the four shore 475 in the first two hours to morning tea, 479 in the next run to lunch, and 492 in each of the runs after lunch, during which sunshine appeared outside for the first time with about an hour to go.
Dion Morrell, who was in his daughter’s pen for much of the day, said the lambs were “a bit average in condition” after recent cold weather.
They had grown a lot of wool in recent weeks, as highlighted in a sample shear of 20 lambs on Monday.
Te Atakura Crawford, who shore the biggest tally of 530 in the trailblazing four-stand women's eight-hour strongwool lambs record.
This averaged 1.228kg of wool per lamb, well over the minimum of 0.9kg required for the seven referees to allow the attempt to go ahead.
“The lambs determine what you can shear; they were not as easy as some might think,” Morrell said.
He highlighted the moment when all four made their last catches of the day, with just seconds remaining on the clock, adding four last lambs to the total which soared above the forecast 1900 and left behind the 1930 projected early in the third run.
“My God, the girls showed some grit,” he said.
“The whole place lit up.”
The final tallies for the four-stand women's eight-hour strong wool lamb world record, set in a South Otago woolshed on Tuesday.
A crew of more than 20 worked throughout the day in and around the shearing board and pens.
At least as many others were involved in other ways, in another display of the shearing industry’s fraternal support.
Scott Cameron of Southern Wide Shearing headed the event, and the referees were convenor Mark Buscomb, from Australia, and New Zealand officials Neil Fagan, Bart Hadfield, Ronnie King, Alistair Emslie, Johnny Fraser, and Donald Johnston.
It was the first of two multi-stand shearing record attempts in the southern regions this summer.
On January 31, Shane Ratima, Paerata Abraham and Leon Samuels will tackle the three-stand, eight-hour strongwool lambs record at Waihelo Station, Moa Flat, West Otago.
