SHEENA Harvey vividly remembers the day, more than 20 years ago, that she was told she could not compete in a surf boat carnival because she was a girl.
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The then 16-year-old was having none of it.
“I was sitting in class and there were three guys behind me talking about a big carnival coming up, and I turned around and said ‘what are these surf boats and how do I get involved’,” she said.
“They said ‘you can’t do it’ and I was totally flabbergasted. That’s when they told me ‘there’s no women in the sport, there is no division for you’. It was like waving a red flag to a bull.”
The determined teenager rallied support at her local surf club and took her push for a women’s surf boat event to Surf Life Saving NSW.
“I went to the local surf club, which was Caves Beach, and asked ‘why not?’,” she said. “Certainly without the help of the blokes there I couldn’t have done it. They knew the system, they knew the right people to ask and they totally had our backs.”
In 1995, the then 17-year-old took to the water with 15 other women at Blacksmiths beach for the first female surf boat competition, the “women’s exhibition race”.
Fast forward 22 years and a proud Mrs Harvey, who races with Swansea-Belmont, is still competing, currently in the NSW Surf Life Saving Championships at Blacksmiths. But this year, for the first time, the number of women’s divisions in the surf boat competition has doubled to four – the same number as the men’s.
“I love watching the younger women who are competing today,” Mrs Harvey said. “They are so strong and so fit. It’s fantastic.”
Mrs Harvey, the chief executive of non-profit organisation Community Activities Lake Macquarie, was named a NSW Local Woman of the Year as part of International Women’s Day on March 8. She was nominated by NSW Member for Swansea Yasmin Catley because she “is wholeheartedly dedicated to improving the lives of others”.
“She’s a selfless advocate for those doing it tough, having spent much of her working life in the community sector,” Ms Catley said.
Bert Hunt, president of the Australian Surf Rowers League, said the addition of Under 19s and Reserves in the women’s surf boat races allowed for greater participation. “In the space of one season we’ve come up from 30 per cent female participation to 45 per cent,” he said. “It gives a place for everybody to compete at their level.”
Mr Hunt praised Mrs Harvey, and others who pushed for the first women’s division in the 1990s. “They were groundbreaking,” he said.
Other Hunter women named as Local Women of the Year were Kylie Gray, Lynda Little, Melissa Histon, Naomi Rees, Ruth Rogers, Vivienne Bruce and Tomika Riley.
