What is the George Bass Marathon?
The George Bass Marathon is 44 years old this year, a phenomenal feat in today’s high pressure sporting environment. It is the longest and toughest surfboat marathon in the world.
The Beginning
Let’s do a little history brief to start with. The very first Bass was run in 1975 with 12 crews including one from Atlantic College in Wales competing. This race was the first time sliding seats had been used in open water surfboat racing. Clubs who contested race 1 in order of finish: Cronulla, Bulli, Point Lonsdale, Burning Palms, Long Reef, Moruya, Seaspray, Portsea, Tathra, Maroubra & Mona Vale.
The race was the brainchild of Bega Newspaper editor Curly Annabel as he came up with the concept of tracing part of the journey of early explorer Surgeon Commander George Bass in 1797. Surgeon Commander Bass with a crew of 6-navel oarsman rowed a longboat not unlike surf’s original double-ended clinker from Port Phillip down the NSW coast and around the southern end on Victoria mapping the coastline as they went. Annabel was at first thought mad and received no support, until then NSW State Secretary and Cronulla boat sweep, the legendary Nick Dixon, took up the cause and the rest, as they say, is history.
Dixon became the driving force behind recruiting initial entries and also trained and swept the Cronulla crew to a resounding victory. The level of professionalism shown by Cronulla in 1975 was the benchmark for all future races. About half the fleet used sliding seats while the rest of the crews used the Vaseline shorts, which was the standard short course method of the time. You should have seen the blisters on hands and bums especially the crews not on sliders, but that’s another story best left for the campfire.