The Coogee Under-9s learn skills to brave the ocean and read its many changing conditions – the key reasons parents enrol their children (from as young as five) into Nippers

The beach is not all business – Ruby Cuthbert lies in the sand, prepared to dash for a flag in the Under-11s race.

Parents are encouraged to play an active part in the surf club by volunteering as water-safety officers or supporting their children, whatever the weather.

Water-safety volunteers – usually parents and dressed in hard-to-miss bright green ‘rashies’ – lead Nippers into the water and teach them valuable surf skills. The volunteers must have at least a bronze-medallion qualification in surf awareness, survival, patrol and rescue procedures and first aid.

Porpoising is a skill used to negotiate waves and this Nipper shows off her perfect form – arms raised, fingers pointed, head down and a big breath before ducking back underneath the water.

More than 150,000 Australians are surf club members, in about 300 clubs. Of those members, 57,000 are Nippers – almost 40 per cent – a growth rate partly attributed to the popularity of lifesaving docu-dramas Bondi Rescue and Surf Patrol.

Under the guidance of Doug Hawkins (at right), Under-9 Nippers get ready to race on foam boards – which are safer and more buoyant than the fibreglass boards used by older members.

Coogee Surf Life Saving Club has about 140 foam and fibreglass boards all of which must be hosed down with fresh water to remove salt and sand after use.

Board practise for Jindabyne Yabbies Felix Zylinski, left, Jessie Quinn, middle, and Tallow Baillie, has added incentive – the lake’s water can drop to a chilly 13°C in winter.

After psyching up during a pre-training briefing, the Jindabyne Yabbies nippers prepare to brave the water of Lake Jindabyne – at least there are no rips, swells or sharks here.

An Under-9 member from Jindabyne nippers goggles up in preparation to race; in the background, her fellow Yabbies stride across sand brought in by truck – Jindabyne’s ‘beach’ is artificial.

The Coogee Minnows is Australia’s oldest continuously operating Nippers club. It was formed in 1956 to boost surf-lifesaving membership, which it succeeded in doing. Other clubs followed suit. By the mid-1960s, SLSA was rolling out a nationwide Nippers program.

Under-11 Nippers – including, from left, Georgia Morgan, Kate Jones and Celeste Bernard Chandler – wait with varying degrees of apprehension before an ocean swim at Sydney’s Coogee Beach.

Beach sprints, games of tug-of-war, and board and swimming races around floating ‘cans’ are a fun way to teach surf safety.

The Coogee Minnows is the second-largest Nippers club in NSW, with 830 kids in the summer of 2009 – a record for Coogee – just behind North Bondi with 844. Late registrations are usually taken on the beach as the season begins, but by last October the Minnows had already closed its books.

Coogee Surf Lifesaving Club’s strength to support from parents. There is an anti ‘drop-and-run’ policy – they must remain on the beach. Many take the hint and become involved. Last summer there were 250 parent helpers, along with 150 water-safety officers and nine age-group managers.

Coogee Minnows nippers line up for a beach flags sprint race.

“If you live in Australia, you have to learn how to swim at the beach,” says mother-of-two Ann Evans, echoing the thoughts almost every nipper parent. “The most important thing apart from being able to read and write in Australia is to learn to swim.”