Anyone with a sibling will know it would be a brave move putting your life in their hands.
The series is a new concept this season, having started in Omaha, north of Auckland, in mid-November, to give crews more competition before the season-ending national tournament.
ibling will know it would be a brave move putting your life in their hands.
That is exactly what won Otago Boys' High School's Bailey and Lachlan Brandham a national surf life-saving medal.
The Dunedin brothers recently returned from the under-14 event at Mt Maunganui, where they won the tube rescue section competing against 90 other teams from around the country.
Lachlan (12) was required to swim out into the water and wait "patiently" for his older brother, Bailey (14), to swim out and save him using a rope and tube.
"It's a great feeling," Bailey said.
The Brighton club members have been surf life-saving for five years and want to continue at higher levels. Bailey will compete in the under-16 age group next year while Lachlan will stay behind.
"I'll probably have to be doing the rescuing now," Lachlan said.
New Zealand's top IRB crews will get crucial preparation at the last round of the surf rescue series in Dunedin this weekend.
Nearly 130 drivers, crews and patients will line up at Warrington Beach today for the series decider, with strong contingents from St Clair and St Kilda expected to feature prominently.
With the national IRB championships to be held at the end of this month at Warrington, crews this weekend will get valuable preparation time in the southern swells.
St Clair sisters Steph and Carla Laughton dominated the women's division at the second round in Whangamata before Christmas. The third round, scheduled for Oakura in Taranaki in mid-January, was abandoned because of dire conditions.
Perennial front-runner East End, with world champions Andrew Cronin and James Morwood, won three titles in the premier division plus the open teams race in Whangamata, while Mt Maunganui twins Kirby and Chad Wheeler were the pick of the under-21 division, winning the single rescue, assembly rescue and mass rescue.
The series is a new concept this season, having started in Omaha, north of Auckland, in mid-November, to give crews more competition before the season-ending national tournament.
