American Kelly Slater is showing no sign of relinquishing his surfing world title, so some enterprising surfers at Manly Beach decided to claim their own world mark.
While seven-time world champion Slater continues to keep Australia's plethora of aspiring world beaters at arms length, a group from the Manly surf school brought a surfing world record back to our shores after 46 people successfully rode the same wave.
The school had set a record of 38 in 2000, but it was lifted to 40 in San Diego and then 43 in Ireland.
So Matt Grainger, director of the surf school, decided to re-claim the mark and it was achieved on the tenth attempt with a mixture of high school students, veterans and five surfing novices.
The feat was recorded and has been sent to the Guinness World Records for verification.
"We had the record six years ago, 38 persons at Manly beach," Grainger said.
"One of my mates told me it got beaten in San Diego, then recently again in Ireland, so we decided we had to get it back on Aussie soil.
"Kelly Slater keeps winning world titles, so we had to try and get something for Australia."
Grainger admitted concern when only 25 people had arrived as they prepared to attempt the record.
But more turned up and some passers-by were also talked into contributing and with a group of about 60 people watching on a new world mark was set in what Grainger described as perfect three-foot surf.
"We did it 10 times and the last two were the best," Grainger said.
"People were falling off and we had five total beginners out there.
"People just rocked up and we said 'do you want to jump in and do a world record' and three of them stood up out of the five.
"We got in a massive line and communicated, like 'this is a bad one, don't catch it, go this one, go, go, go'.
"I didn't want to claim it until we saw the video.
"We checked the video about 10 times and paused it and counted and got all the heads and we got the 46.
"We'll see what Mr Guinness says."
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