Chris Nicholson, Bert Hunt and Gavin Hunt are training Turkish rowers a surfboat marathon that will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli.

Bert Hunt, a long-time member of Moruya Surf Life Saving Club and president of the Surf Rowers League of Australia, has just returned from Turkey where he has been training crews for a carnival on the Black Sea coast on June 19.

It is the second year that Australian coaches have gone to Turkey to train crews in surfboat racing.

Bert’s son, Gavin, and Nicholson will leave Moruya next Friday, to continue this training.

There will be 13 boat crews, from universities, rowing clubs and the Turkish Navy, competing in the carnival on June 19.

While the Black Sea coast isn’t commonly associated with mountainous surf, Bert says the conditions aren’t as easy as most Australians might think.

“You do get a wave over there,” he said.

“It is like Western Australia; it is very windswept and the waves travel a long way. They get up to around 1.5 to two metres and they are closer together, so we have to learn a whole new skill.”

Australian and New Zealand surfboat crews have planned a 100-boat race through the Dardenelles and a landing at Anzac Cove on April 25, 2015, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1915 landings.

The Hunts and Nicholson will be involved.

“The Turks said that they were delighted about the race and that they wanted to be involved,” Bert said.

He says the conditions will be very challenging for the crews - more so in many ways than the George Bass Marathon, of which Bert is a stalwart.

“You can change crews in the water in the George Bass, but over there it is too cold,” he said.

“While we were over there a crew member went into the water, which was six degrees Celsius, and he required medical attention. You have to look for spots on land to swap, and this is also hard, because the terrain is inhospitable.”

For Nicholson, this trip and that in 2015 will have tremendous cultural significance.

“I did the Kokoda Track a few years ago, and to go to Gallipoli would be pretty special,” he said.