Whale Beach SLSC is going through a huge renewal of its Surf Boat Division, with Boat Captain and Sweep Brett Babicci leading a growing group of enthusiastic surf lifesavers into the next big charge of this legendary club on a favourite surf sports discipline.
Having joined Whale Beach as a teenager, Brett has served the community as a volunteer lifesaver for over three decades and held several positions at Whale Beach; Competition Secretary and a member of the Competition Committee, Boat Captain (for over 10 years), serving on the Management Committee, and Patrol Captain.
Brett is also President of Whale Beach SLSC for the 2025-2026 Season, which is a full-time volunteer job atop your Monday to Friday job, and only for the dedicated.
Gaining your Patrol Captain award is not easy – the achievement recognises leadership, commitment and dedication to ensuring the safety of our community on the beach. Whale Beach SLSC had four new Patrol Captains earn their PC Award by the start of the Season in 2025: Jacqui Rees-Ewen, Sarah Sherlock, Angus Sippe and Brett.
As Competition Secretary Brett helps coordinate the Whaley Sunday events, the Club Championships, The Noel Greenfield Point to Point Swim, as well as Surf Boats at Branch, ASRL Open, State, and Aussies Competitions.
On February 25th 2024 Whale Beach SLSC revived an old event, and ran the Inaugural Babicci Trophy Black Rock Ski Race.
However, Brett’s passion is surf boats, stating in Whale Beach SLSC’s 2023-2024 Annual Report as Competition Secretary:
‘’Near and dear to my heart is the thrill of adorning the sky-blue cap with a yellow stripe and the famous brown ears, putting all that training on the line, listening for the call “Gun’s Up” competing against your mates from other clubs until the sweep yells “stop rowing” once the boat is up the sand.’’
After the ‘Weekend at the Roy’, January 23-24 2026, part of Branch’s Boat Premiership and Round 4 2025/26:
‘From start to finish, it was a great mix of competition, club spirit and plenty of laughs. Our teams - Free Willy’s, Moby Dicks and Blowholes - brought the energy, backed each other all the way, and represented the club with pride.
We’re grateful to Collaroy SLSC for the organisation and hospitality, and to everyone who got involved and made it such a fun weekend. Already counting down to the next one.’’
The 2026 NSW Surf Life Saving Championships are currently underway. This year they have returned to Blacksmiths Beach, often considered the unofficial home of State Champs.
Thanks to a new three-year agreement, Swansea-Belmont SLSC will once again host thousands of athletes, volunteers, and supporters from 19 February to 1 March 2026 for one of the biggest events on the surf sports calendar.
The Open & Surf Boat Championships run next weekend, 27 February-1 March 2026 at Swansea-Belmont SLSC. After that, everyone will head north to the Australian Surf Lifesaving Championships, the Aussies.
This Issue, Brett shares a few insights on where the Whaley is at now that we’re at the pointy end of the surf sports Season, and why he devotes so much of himself to his community surf club.
When did you commence with Whale Beach SLSC as Sweep?
In 2015. I’ve been a member of Whale Beach SLSC for 35 years, since 5th Form. I joined when I was 15. I grew up in this area, a local, and I’m still living in the house I grew up in.
I started rowing in the 2005-2006 Season at Whale Beach. We got a Bronze in the Aussies in an Open crew in 2008. We won back-to-back medals in 2008 and 2009 and was in the Australian Team in 2011.
Surf Life Saving Australia recorded:
''Australian representatives in the 2011 Trans Tasman Series in New Zealand were the Whale Beach Bigfish and Currumbin Beach Barbarians. Bigfish sweep Howard Christie had tasted Aussies gold before as a rower when he was part of the Ross Jorgensen Bungan Beach crews that won gold in 1985 and 1986 as had Vikings sweep Lyle Clark, who steered Palm Beach (NSW) to victory in 2000 and Tallebudgera Women in 2002.
Clark said then his crew was as determined as ever to pocket the elusive little green box, that houses Aussie gold. “We certainly had no luck in that ASRL final in Wollongong after rowing so well all weekend only to be swamped at the second start,” said Clark. “But the boys know they are rowing faster than anyone else and we will probably rest up a little before planning our strategy in the lead up to the Aussies, where we will contest both the NSW and Queensland Championships. “There is no doubt we are hungry for that Aussies gold.”
So you took over Sweeping the Whale Beach crews when Midget passed away?
That’s right. His lovely wife Beverlie came to one of the carnivals we raced in soon after he passed away, making sure his surf boat ‘Barrenjoey’ was kept running, as he wanted. This boat he had built himself and we wanted to honour his decades of dedication to surf sports. We took part in the December 2016 Surf Boat Carnival Warriewood SLSC hosted – also the same day my second daughter was born. I went straight from the hospital to a carnival!
How wonderful- congratulations, she must be 10 now. What have been the benefits of being part of the surf lifesaving movement for you?
I looked up to a lot of the local legends like Hal Bailey and Paul Young, the Websters and the Hendriksons. At school there was Saul Brown and Ben Nicholson, who were a few years above me. The person and man I am today has come from their great examples and all they shared while I was becoming an adult. When the surf boats started at Whale Beach and I could be a part of that I was excited because again you had that camaraderie that comes from being part of a surf boat crew, the team this builds which strengthens all you do as a member of a surf club.
The success we had as part of the surf boat section extended what had been a long heritage of success in that sport at Whale Beach SLSC.
On Friday mornings I’ll have a coffee with some of the surf boat legends of Whale Beach SLSC, many of them in their 90’s, men like Teddy Allen and Brian Graver and John Baird, who are stalwarts of the club and remain local legends. We talk about old and now new surf boat stories, so it’s something that is a vital part of the club, even outside of the Season.
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Philip Schmidt, former President of Whale Beach SLSC, and Brett at Palm Beach SLSC's Adrian Curlewis Masters Carnival in January 2026
The resurgence of surf boats at Whale Beach, how did this commence and why were you determined to see it grow?
I love what it’s given to me and wanted to see that continue. Although there’s clubs like Palm Beach which have a big surf boat contingent, and South Curly and Mona Vale that are pulling it back in, the surf boat cohort needs to keep an eye on developing future athletes. For me it’s been a good way to attract new members to the club and for them to build connections with their club-mates. To build up the boat competition, and have Whale Beach as a part of that, has been a primary objective.
The names for the Whale Beach SLSC Boat Crews monikers stem from whale names – in keeping with honouring the club and the old Moby Dicks nightclub in the clubhouse – is an extension of that.
Whaley Boaties 2025-26 Season – are you going in Branch, States, the ASRL Open, Aussies?
We’ve had a whole heap of new crews, new rowers and people who have experience in the sport getting involved this Season and now that we’re getting to the pointy end of the Season those crews are tightening up and keen to test their metal. We have four crews that are dedicated and hoping to do their best at all of them – Branch, the ASRL Open, States and then Aussies.
We’ll have about 20 people up at Aussies, along with all their supporters and mums and dads, and some Life Members coming up for their part of it as well, so a large Whale Beach SLSC contingent heading north to Tugun this March.
What has been your training routine prior to and during the Season?
Whaley’s got a good gym so they’re always in the gym doing ergs – and I’ve got a couple of new ergs this Season, so they’ve been able to get in there with the weights and the gym equipment and build fitness. We also do two sessions in the boat each week too – one in the surf and one on the flat water at Bayview in case they need to row in those conditions. You can’t always rely on catching a wave back in, you need to train for flatwater too.
You are Sweeping every Whale Beach crew – aren’t you a bit exhausted?
Yes (laughs) but as we’re focussed on building we’re training up a couple of young Sweeps to help me out next Season. It’s all part of or long-term working plan.
What are your favourite places in Pittwater and why?
Well, Whale Beach. Why?; – because it’s home away from home for me. It’s just over the hill from where I live. There’s always a tricky wave to surf so the conditions are always testing you to do your best.
Does Whale Beach SLSC’s Boat Division have a ‘motto for life’ or favourite phrase it tries to live up to?
For me it’s been really enjoyable seeing these crews build connections with the club, each other, and the surf boat community. Some of the crews during the past two Seasons have been ex-Knox students and seeing them get something out of rowing and go from being boys to men has been a positive experience. They’ve been learning about surf boats, learning about taking care of each other. Seeing them enjoy this surf sport and finding that what you put into it is what you will get out of it – which is also setting them up to do well in every other aspect of their lives – is one way, among many, surf clubs continue to support people to become all they want to be.
This honours Surf Life Saving Australia’s motto of ‘Vigilance and Service’- and reflects a commitment to serving the community with the skills they have learned as that is already alive, as practice, within the surf club.
Whale Beach SLSC 2025-2026 Boat Division:
Reserve Female: Whale Beach Humpbacks; 1 Sarah Sherlock, Bow, 2 Miriam Woof, Second Bow, 3 Kristin Walker, Second Stroke, 4 Sophie Nettelbeck, Stroke, 5 Brett Babicci Sweep
Reserve Male: Whale Beach Blowholes; 1 Bowen Frahm, Bow, 2 Kai Wood, Second Bow, 3 Harry Millard, Second Stroke, 4 Barnabas Hackett, Stroke, 5 Brett Babicci Sweep
U23 Female: Whale Beach Free Willy's; 1 Taya Garner, Bow, 2 Lilly Kovac, Second Bow, 3 Kristin Walker, Second Stroke, 4 Sophie Nettelbeck, Stroke, 5 Brett Babicci Sweep
U23 Male: Whale Beach Lil D's; 1 Nicholas Rogers, Bow, 2 Braydon Smink, Second Bow, 3 Oscar Downes, Second Stroke, 4 Benjamin Bernard, Stroke, 5 Brett Babicci Sweep
U23 Male: Whale Beach Moby Dick's; 1 Owen Saunders, Bow, 2 Elliott Gordon, Second Bow, 3 William Parker, Second Stroke, 4 Benjamin Bernard, Stroke, 5 Brett Babicci Sweep.
The 2026 Australian Surf Life Saving Championships will be held on the Gold Coast, Queensland at North Kirra SLSC and Tugun SLSC from 21 – 29 March, 2026
Surf Boats and Masters 23 March – 24 March 2026 both at: Tugun Beach.
Tugun is a relatively protected long stretch of Gold Coast beach which is part of the World Surfing Reserve. Tugun Beach is patrolled by Tugun Surf Life Saving Club, located 500 m south of Flat Rock. The club was founded in 1924 and has a large club house located on a small foreshore reserve.
There are beach breaks along most of the beach, which to the south are better on the outer bar. The prime surfing spot is Kirra Point, famous for its long right-handers breaking over a sand bar produced in part by the Greenmount groyne.
Photos: courtesy Whale Beach SLSC
