Welcome to the George Bass Marathon.

This is what numerous athletes from the Illawarra have in store for them when they take to the ocean for the 2018 edition of the longest surfboat race in the world. 

Bulli Surf Life Saving Club will enter open mens and masters mens teams while Wollongong City will field a joint team with Tallebudgera in the masters mens competition. Wollongong City members Warwick Ward and Paul Buttell will also compete in the surf ski competition, with Buttell representing Wanda. 

Bulli enter the opens competition as defending champions, however club president Keith Caldwell concedes the club is sending a relatively inexperienced team to this year’s edition.

“We have a completely different crew from the previous time,” Caldwell said. “Only three to four from the last race are returning, so we’re basically a mixture of our under 23 mens crew and some opens guys. For a couple of the guys it will be their first experience rowing those distances over seven days.

The 2018 edition is shaping up as one of the biggest in the race’s 42 year history, with 25 surfboat teams and 13 individual ski teams set to line up on the start line. The first leg will commence at 9am on Sunday with entrants to row 27 kilometres from Bateman’s Bay to Moruya.   

Throughout the seven days, the athletes will row 190km along NSW’s south coast as they make their way to Eden. Distances of the seven legs vary from 19km to 35km and will see the competitors spend as long as six hours out on the water, depending on the weather conditions.

“Physically and mentally, it’s very tough. You have to be physically fit to row that distance, but also mentally strong. Just with the blisters, on your hands, on your bottom, dealing with the weather conditions with sunburn and windburn.”

The male surfboat teams consist of eight rowers plus a sweep, with four in the boat rowing at any one time. Substitutions are made by jumping out of the support boat and swimming over to the surfboat. This is where hypothermia becomes a genuine concern according to Adam Barlow, who will compete in his fifth George Bass Marathon in Bulli’s opens team.

“You do it in about 20 minute stints,” Barlow said. “There’s eight of us jumping in and out, rowing for two to two and half hours, it’s pretty taxing by the end of it. When it’s a southerly there’s a risk of hypothermia, with the combination of the cold wind and the water.

“You’re jumping in and out of the water. The southerly’s the worst, it adds an extra 30% on the day. You’re cold, it gets real miserable at times.”

The early weather forecast for this year’s event suggests the dreaded southerly might greet the competitors when they venture out from Bateman’s Bay on Sunday, however the forecast for the week as a whole is looking promising.

As a result of the extreme conditions competitors face throughout the race, Barlow believes a sense of camaraderie develops among the different teams.

“Last Bass we had torrential rain and we were all just standing around, particularly at the back end of the race when everybody’s really tired, looking at other people knowing they’re going through what you’re going through. There’s that respect there.”

Ultimately, in a race as challenging as this, the sense of achievement comes not from finishing first, but in completing a true test of mental and physical endurance with a group of close friends. And that is why Barlow and hundreds of others keep coming back for what they know will be a torturous week on the water.

“It’s a great race, a great way to challenge yourself, a great opportunity to get away and be with eight other guys you're good mates with. The way it works, it really fosters that mateship and camaraderie, you’re camping with your mates, you’re rowing hard every day, it’s a great way to challenge yourself.”