Lachie Brearley
ROBERT BANKS
You can see it a long way off. Talent, that is. Being average at a few sports has over the years given me the opportunity to know my place. My limitations were imposed on me by the shining talents doing stuff I couldn’t. It was the best type of reality check. It is interesting and instructive to be just good enough at something – in my case surfing, football and tennis – to see up close what you’re not and will never be.
It was that way when my friend and I took on the No.1 seeds in a junior doubles tennis competition (we were caned eight games to one). It was that way when I was matched against very large boys in the under-14 football who seemed to quite enjoy inserting my head into the mud of the centre square and racing off to kick a goal.
And it was that way in the surf, too, except slightly less aggressive. When you see the brilliant surfers carving their way towards you, working their magic on the face of the wave, revelling in their own athleticism, all that’s left to you is to watch in awe and quickly scramble out of their way.
Thirty years ago Lachie Brearley would have been one of those slicing his way past me. He still might one day, and today I would be very happy to respectfully steer my eight-foot Malibu out of his way while he dashed past on his five-foot performance board.
We’ve met up with Lachie and his parents, Anthony and Sara, at their Armadale home. In the hallway are photos of Lachie with various surfing stars such as Mark Occhilupo and Kelly Slater. On the family computer I’m shown footage of Lachie surfing. On a wave he has a fluency about him that’s startling when you consider his age and size. He surfs with a child’s joyful abandon.
Lachie, 11, has got it made. He gets to surf together with his father. Or should that be – Anthony Brearley, solicitor and lifelong wave hound, has it made. He gets to paddle out in any conditions, in any size waves, into warm or icy water, with his son and go for a surf.
And Lachie never shirks an issue. Earlier this year Lachie and his dad did an epic surf trip to a break on Victoria’s notoriously treacherous and inhospitable south coast, to Moonlight Head. “We left at 5.30am,” Anthony says, “drove two hours to Princetown, then took the four-wheel-drive up a dirt track for half an hour, then we had to find the track, which is hard because the locals discourage anyone finding it, then walk through the bush for 15 minutes, then for half an hour climbing down the cliffs with ropes, abseiling down holding the boards, to get to the break.”
And that was just to get there. Without a boat it was the only way in. “Lachie and I went very slowly,” Anthony says. Once down there, it was, in surfer talk, “all time”, which means excellent. “It was relentless, the sets kept coming through,” Anthony says. “We watched it for 15 minutes to see where it was breaking. It was very big, six-, eight-foot, eight-foot faces. I did say to Lachie ‘Are you sure?’ We were with two other guys, very experienced surfers. They said ‘You can’t hurt yourself, but it is eerie’.”
The little group surfed for three hours, Lachie handling it fine. “Fell off a bit,” Lachie says. They then scaled the cliff with the boards. “We did a chain and passed the boards up,” says Lachie.
It was no big deal for Lachie, just another step in his journey to become a great surfer. He’s been surfing since he was three, lying down on a board on broken waves during a family holiday at Tarthra, New South Wales, moving to standing up on unbroken waves in the Maldives on a “G Board” (the learner boards made of high-density polyethylene). When he was seven the family moved to Dubai for a few years for a “sea change” and Lachie graduated to his own fibreglasss board. “That’s when I really started surfing,” he says.
And he took to it quickly. “I really enjoyed it.” I asked him how he felt on those big waves. “A bit scary.” Did he wipe out? “I don’t remember getting hit too much.”
In May, Lachie came first in the Otway Boardriders under-14 competition and second in the under-16 section, competing against boys several years older. His prize was “a free pizza”. But a bigger prize might be an increased profile on the junior circuit. Certainly his competition results are impressing his sponsor, Strapper surfboards, based in Torquay. “For a kid that weighs 27 kilograms he stands out more than anyone I’ve ever seen,” says Dylan Schulze, Strapper team manager. “For his height and weight he never holds back. Even paddling through some big waves is a challenge when you are that small.”
As Lachie’s sponsor, Strapper offers him half-price surfboards and the chance to work with the surfboard shaper on the design that best suits him rather than picking one off the rack. “He says he wants something that will go really fast,” says Schulze. In return for this small investment, Lachie gets noticed in the surf riding their product.
Someone to look up to: Lachie with Mick Fanning.
COURTESY ANTHONY BREARLEY
Schulze, and everyone else at Fairhaven where Lachie does most of his surfing, is enjoying watching his progress. “He’s surfing against 16-year-olds,” he says. “He looks like a little boy out there. A big wave comes through and they’re pulling back and Lachie goes for it. He gets everyone on the beach cheering.”
Are his friends impressed that he is sponsored? “Yes,” Lachie says. “Does he surf with them? “Yes. There are two that are good. Most of them are just learning.”
Lachie learnt to surf with his father at his side. The family shares a beach house at Fairhaven, which they get to when they can (Lachie’s Sunday afternoon football commitments bring them home after a morning surf).
There have been some challenging times, especially around the unforgiving beach breaks on the Mornington Peninsula. One day Anthony and Lachie were out at Gunnamatta, a break that can get very nasty very quickly. “I thought I was going to have to read you your last rites that day,” Anthony says, smiling at Lachie. “It was four feet and it just turned ugly eight foot within minutes. I was right beside Lachie and we were fine. But then it got huge and we couldn’t paddle in. We just hung in there and waited. I knew we were fine. It teaches you to be careful in the sea.”
Anthony says he believes Lachie is safe. Only this year has Lachie stopped wearing a helmet. “I don’t believe surfing is a dangerous sport if you know what you’re doing,” Anthony says. “He wears a bright wetsuit. I always know where he is.”
What about these older guys on eight-foot Malibu boards with their often-limited ability to make quick turns – do they ever get in his way? “Yes, they’ve run me over a few times,” Lachie says. With all those different craft in the water, with differently skilled surfers competing for the same waves – can everyone co-exist? “Malibus are all right but I don’t like the little goat boats,” Lachie says. “They can’t turn, they just head straight for you.”
Brearley snr says he is not a good surfer but “I’ll have a go at anything”. He calls his son’s passion for surfing his “ticket”. “I was very fortunate that Lachie shared my passion,” he says. “It meant we could pursue this passion together. I thought it was a good sport to get involved in, and he took to it and every time I wanted to go out for a surf he wanted to come. I think it’s a great father and son or father and daughter thing to do.” Lachie says: “My sister, Ali, surfs but not nearly as much as me.”
Older surfers are sometimes surprised to see Lachie in big surf. “They all say ‘Your son’s incredible’,” Anthony says. “A few people said ‘Are you sure he should be out here?’ I said “Yep. Watch him surf. He knows his limitations’. And they’ll be looking at a wave and they’ll see Lachie taking off and they say ‘Aaah, he’s fine’.”
Father and son have had some interesting experiences in the water together. “We were surfing and it smelt fishy and then a seal popped up and about 10 minutes later there was a shark just in front of us,” Lachie remembers. “The shark was chasing the seal.”
Did he see the shark? “Yes.” How close? “About 10 metres.” How many others out there? “Quite a few people.” So your odds were pretty good … He smiles. “I paddled straight in.”
I wasn’t going to mention the word “shark” but he has brought it up. “I’m not really scared of them, but when I see one I’m scared,” says Lachie. Says Anthony: “It’s part of surfing. The sea is theirs.” At The Pass in Byron Bay they’ve heard the siren go off a couple of times but “it goes off so often people ignore it”, says Anthony. “I’m with Lachie,” he says. “You just don’t think about it. The statistics are pretty low that you’ll get taken. I don’t know the last time there was a shark attack in Victoria.”
Would Lachie like to be a professional surfer? “I’d like to, but it’ a long way off,” he says.
“I’m just happy surfing for fun.” Does Anthony see the desire in his son to take it all the way? “If suiting up and surfing three or four times a day during winter then, yes, I believe you have got that commitment,” he says. “If you are out there in freezing conditions, when it’s like sticking your head in a bucket of ice-cream every time you go through a wave, then yes, there is that commitment.”
How does Lachie feel about surfing in icy Victorian waters? “If the wetsuits’s wet and (the surf is) not that good, I’m not that keen,” he says. “But most of the time I just go in.” How would Anthony feel if Lachie went onto a professional career? “I’d be delighted,” he says. “Anything’s possible if you work hard enough.”
I asked Lachie who his heroes were when he was growing up … until I remembered he still is growing up. He met Australian surfer Owen Wright when Wright was just 15 (he is now 19 and ranked eighth in the world with prize earnings of $314,700). “I said ‘Can I have your autograph? and he said ‘I’ve never done one before’.”
Lachie likes Bethany Hamilton, too, the Hawaiian woman who, despite her left arm being bitten off by a shark, still surfs (she is the subject of a film Soul Surfer based on her book). “I saw her surfing,” Lachie says. “She was very fast at paddling. She has a handle on the board which she holds onto to stand up.” And he likes Hawaiian surfer Shane Dorian, four-time Australian women’s world champion Stephanie Gilmore, and Australian Mick Fanning. “He’s got a good style.”
Lachie’s big dream is a way off, so right now he is happy to go surfing whenever he can. I think father and son are blessed to be able to do this amazing sport together. Those of us who know the magic of surfing with close friends – sitting in the middle of the ocean can be the world’s best meeting spot – can understand how rich an experience it is for Anthony and Lachie.
Like other 11-year-olds, there’s footy and tennis and friends and school work to keep him busy. But surfing’s never far from his mind. Says his mother Sara: “Whenever we plan a holiday Lachie will say ‘Is there surf there?’.”