Naming ‘the ultimate’

JOEL RITCHIE

SHELLHARBOUR Surf Life Saving Club honoured one of its favourite sons with the dedication of a new surfboat on Sunday.

The Seaweed is named for life member and long time surfboat sweep Alex ‘Seaweed’ Smith, who was present on Sunday for the boat’s dedication. Mr Smith said the surfboat naming is the highlight of his 50 years-plus years’ involvement with Shellharbour Surf Club.

“It’s a great honour, a very big honour,” Mr Smith said.

“This is the ultimate, the biggest thing in my career.

“I was there to watch it; usually people are in the hereafter when they receive an honour like this.

“I was in a daze all afternoon; all the boys from the surf club and my family were there.”

Fellow life member John Ritchie, who was a stroke for a number of Mr Smith’s Shellharbour crews, undertook the dedication of the boat.

Mr Smith started rowing with Shellharbour in the 1950s, thanks to the encouragement of Shellharbour stalwart Doug Steele, and was the sweep for a gun crew that won three Illawarra Branch titles from in the late 1950s.

He also was the sweep on Shellharbour crews that won back-to-back Illawarra junior titles in the early 1960s.

Mr Smith was also the sweep for the Shellharbour crew that won the Les Lockwood Memorial Shield, which was contested by Illawarra branch clubs.

The shield is named for Les Lockwood, who was the brother of Mr Smith’s wife, Val Smith (nee Lockwood).

To this day, Mr Smith still mentors some Shellharbour boat crews, albeit on the calmer waters of the Minnamurra River rather than the rough and tumble of the surf.

“I don’t know how many boys and girls I have taken out to crack some waves but I have had a great career,”

“There’s kids at the club who come up to me still and say ‘g’day weed’.”

Ah, “weed”. How did the nickname come about?

“It was 1956 and our club president said I looked like a lump of seaweed wrapped around a stick when I was sweeping the boat,” Mr Smith said.

Present at the dedication were Mr Smith’s wife Val, sisters Annette and Marion and daughters Julie and Chris.

The Seaweed will make its maiden voyage in the near future, with Mr Smith at the helm.