The Nahoon Granny Grommets set out to break a world record boogie boarding feat by trying to get 57 surfers on one wave on Friday morning at East London’s most iconic surf spot, Nahoon Beach.
Getting the group together for the attempt was perhaps more difficult than for them to catch the actual wave.
As one spectator put it, “this is like herding cats,” though it did not seem to interfere with the fun element.
The attempt to crack the world record never materialised, mainly because the waves did not come to the party.
They were fluky, breaking in patches and not conducive to a co-ordinated 57-strong group catching a wave at the same time.
The Grommets were on a dual quest. The first was attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the cumulative age of the 57 entrants.
The second was to assist surfer JP (Jean Paul) Veaudry in raising funds to attend the ISA Para World Surfing Championships in the US.
“I am incredibly grateful for the support of the Grannies’ fundraising.
“It was a win-win. They seemed to have a lot of fun and I’m a long way down the road to the world champs,” said Veaudry.
Event organisers and founders of the Grommets, Julie Schroeter and Lee-Ann Lavender, said the original aim was breaking the record for the number of surfers on one wave.
“But that was really difficult because the waves were not playing ball.
“The second goal was taking the ages of all the surfers and adding them together, so that should have done it for us,” said Schroeter.
It turns out the attempt to break the world records was easy, because there is no official record for numbers on a wave.
The second, the 57 entrants’ ages added up, might succeed.
“We were hoping to beat 3000, which we thought was going to be quite a hard one to beat.
“It turned out it wasn’t. Total years in the water was a staggering 3,000, calculated on 50 participants at an average age of 60.
“On a good summer day our record is 65. We have 120 members in our group.”
She said the two other Eastern Cape Grommet clubs, Gqeberha and Port Alfred, were likely to take up the challenge.
“Other towns have shown an interest in starting clubs, so who knows, we might soon have a national competition, but all in fun.”
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