HEAT THIRTEEN

BY PETER KING

Should I attempt to drink 21 beers in one week? I doubt it! With my three sons? Possibly!  Would I want to? Not really! But I still wanted to swim in Heat 13.

If you are talking about Bondi Beach in winter it’s inevitably about racing at the Bondi Icebergs. It is to Bondi in winter what the Tour de France is to France in July. It epitomises the beachside community.

One of the great traditions of the Bondi Icebergs is Heat 13. I’d swum at the club for more than five years and was a proud fully-fledged Iceberg, yet I’d never swum in that heat. Of the 50 or so heats swum each Sunday in winter, this one race is famous.

In the days when winning Heat 13 meant the winner could drink as many beers as he could in one week, the legendary Lofty drank the bar dry and, the story goes, nearly collapsed the club’s finances. The committee changed the prize to 21 beers in one week.

Bronte resident Peter McCallum first alerted me to the social cache of winning Heat 13. Johnny Kirby, a man who retired 20 years ago and is still fit as a fiddle, inferred it was time for me to have a go. “You might win it,” he said. I think he saw some free drinks coming up. So after the races one Sunday morning I lodged six tickets for the club lottery and let it be known it was my turn. Peter and Johnny gave me their tickets, and I was in with a chance. Peter rang to let me know. “You’re in Heat 13.”

Training was difficult. Too much work during the week (insistent judges) and rainy cold mornings gave me an excuse to defer. A few swims at the local beach, but not much. But I thought a lot about it.

And then I was there, stripping down to my blue budgie-snugglers.  Rainy skies and big seas; the day was foreboding. Rising seas meant the waves from the Bay raced across the pool pushing the outside lane marker towards the pool centre. I stretched, jogged on the spot. I was nervous.

Heat six came and went; then Heat 12. Marcus, the starter’s assistant, picked up the list to give to the starter. Lofty, who often did the starts, was watching critically.  I was in lane 3, off six seconds. Two leggy ladies on my left, and two jumbos on my right, and two sleek swimmers further across.

The race was called and off we went. I breathed just four times in 40 metres. I swam for my life. No help from the waves where I was in the pool. But had I won? I was sure I had as I reached the ropes and looked up.

But no, I hadn’t even been placed. Beaten by Jill, the leggy lady, and Harry with the big torso two across. One consolation:  now I was part of the tradition. Another: I will not have to drink those 21 beers, though I prefer Peter’s solution when he won the fabled heat a week after my race and used his vouchers to shout everyone in sight!

Yet I resolved that if I swim in Heat 13 again I will definitely train. Long may this great tradition and the mateship of its members, male and female, survive.

Peter King is a city barrister-at-law who lives in the Eastern suburbs.