As Avalon Beach SLSC crews head to the 2026 Australian Surf Life Saving Championships on the Gold Coast, there is another reason this season invites a look back. The club marked its 100th anniversary in 2025, prompting renewed attention to its surf boat history. The 2026 championships sit just beyond that centenary year, making this a moment to reflect on what surf boats have meant to Avalon across time.
Before the racing
It is easy now to think of surf boats mainly in terms of training, carnivals and results. At Avalon, that was not how the story began.
Surf boats were part of lifesaving first. The club’s own history places Avalon’s beginnings in 1925, when the area’s growing popularity for bathing led locals to establish a lifesaving service. The surf boat came later, but it remained closely tied to rescue work and patrol duties.
Avalon’s first surf boat arrived in early 1936, when club member Wally Simmonds obtained Akubra from Queenscliff. By 1938 the club was raising money for another boat, arranging its christening and buying a trailer. This grew through local fundraising, donated support and practical member effort.
The work the boats were built for
One of the clearest reminders of the club’s lifesaving role happened in March 1956. A 34-foot sloop, Iolaire, was disabled off North Avalon after part of its mast snapped in heavy seas.
According to reports, an Avalon junior boat crew, returning after competing at Bilgola, rowed out to the yacht, took one crew member off, and enabled help to be arranged so the vessel could be towed to safety.
Interrupted, then rebuilt
Avalon Beach SLSC was heavily affected by the war years. Enlistments during World War II left the beach under-patrolled and reduced active membership to the point where there were not enough members to row the boat properly. After the war, the surf boat crew had to be rebuilt.
In 1945-46 the club bought Miss STC II from Queenscliff. The boat was used to train newer members, including boys from Police Boys’ Club squads, in boat handling and rescue work.
When the boat was later damaged beyond repair, the club again turned to fundraising and support for a replacement. Much of this pattern is in Avalon’s surf boat history. Boats were bought, damaged, replaced and named, but the larger story was one of persistence.
From effort to identity
By the 1960s and 1970s, the surf boat section was recording stronger results and wider support. Junior crews were doing especially well, with the 1966-67 junior crew winning every restricted carnival through the season.
Support came from many directions, including the Ladies Auxiliary and local donors. By then, the club was also becoming one of the ways Avalon recognised itself.
That sense of identity deepened in later decades. The club history notes that Avalon won the Australian Open Surfboat title in 1993. A ladies’ crew also had its beginning during this period.
What continues…
In the 2000s, Avalon fielded world-champion surf boat crews, including the Antiques women’s masters crew, and maintained strong performances across branch, state and national competitions.
In 2018, the club christened a new surf boat, Roland Luke, reflecting both continued success and ongoing support from sponsors and the local community.
A century on from the club’s founding, and in the season after that centenary was marked, the boats still carry more than one meaning. They are part of competition, certainly, and the 2026 Aussies are the latest stage on that path. But they also reflect a history of rescue work, post-war rebuilding and volunteer effort within the club.
Avalon’s surf boat story is not only about what happened on carnival day. It is also about how a community kept renewing itself, crew by crew, season by season.
The 2026 Australian Surf Life Saving Championships, known as “The Aussies”, will be held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, from 21 to 29 March 2026, across North Kirra Surf Life Saving Club and Tugun Surf Life Saving Club. The event is the largest annual competition in surf lifesaving, bringing together competitors from surf clubs across Australia to contest a wide range of beach and ocean events.
Published 20-March-2026
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