Surf lifesaving reels like this one from New Plymouth’s East End Surf Life Saving Club have been used since the first days of the sport. The use of surf reels has largely been superseded in recent years by the use of surfboats, boards, swimmers with rescue tubes and outboard-powered IRBs (inflatable rescue boats), nicknamed “rubber ducks”. Surf lifesaving is a competition sport that sport that has evolved from the necessity of having lifeguards patrolling the rugged Taranaki beaches. The need for such patrols came with the increase in the popularity of beach swimming in the early 1920s. East End (1913) at New Plymouth was one of the earliest clubs to form in New Zealand - only three years after the first at New Brighton in Christchurch. Many of the clubs formed at the time – New Plymouth Old Boys, now based at Oakura (1921), Fitzroy (1921), Opunake (1922), Patea(1928), Hawera (1931) and Waitara (1932) – still survive and continue to take national honours at surf carnivals around New Zealand.