The first official competition for the homegrown art of the Manu will crown the creator of the country’s biggest and loudest splash
Show a Kiwi a body of water, and they’ll want to jump into it.
That’s the impression you’d get on a tour of fishing wharves, bridges and well-placed cliffs during a New Zealand summer.
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As much we’re a fishing nation or a boating nation, we’re a dive bombing nation.
In recent years it’s been the loud and grand-splashing v-shape of the Manu that’s practised and perfected at our swimming spots.
And for the first time this summer, one practised plunger will be crowned world champion following the Z Manu World Champs, a national competition where some 5,000 dive bombs will be judged by Olympic-level technology.
Events across the country will rate contestants on splash size using video software first used to measure the ripples from Olympic high-divers, developed with support from AUT Biomechanics professor Patria Hume.
This time, the software will be looking for who can make the biggest splash.
But though the event organiser Scott Rice said the main goal was to encourage a bit of active fun, it also shines a light on New Zealand’s drowning record and the populations who are particularly affected.
New Zealanders love getting in the water, but it doesn’t mean they’re safe about it.
In 2022, there were 94 drownings – the highest number in a decade. So far there have been 69 drownings in 2023, the same number as this time last year.
The vast majority of those are male (85 percent in 2022). Those aged over 55 had the highest numbers on record, with most incidents while out on boats.
But a large number of fatalities also occur in rivers or while swimming.
Water Safety New Zealand found New Zealand has a high drowning rate compared with other countries in the OECD.
During the 2010s, the rate was between 1.7 per 100,000 of population, compared with 1.1 in Australia and 1.3 in Canada.
And it’s not an issue that cuts equally across the population, with 31 percent of all drowning fatalities in 2021 being Māori, despite Māori only representing 17 percent of the total population.
Rice put together the event after a long personal history of organising water recreation events. He created the Ocean Swim Series, New Zealand’s largest recreational swimming event, and currently runs a yearly event in Fiji.
With a family history of Olympic-level swimmers, Rice grew up swimming and lifeguarding by the pool. He remembers spending days watching young people leap from great heights.
“I used to watch guys and girls do bombs all day,” he said. “And nowadays somewhere like Orewa Wharf is just rammed all day in the summer.”
He wanted to put together an event that would celebrate the unique Kiwiness of the Manu.
“As an island nation, we’re never too far from the ocean,” he said. “And from what I’ve seen it’s a uniquely Kiwi thing.”
There’s a global tradition of informal diving. The German arschbombe, the Triestine Horseshoe in Italy, the horsey in Australia.
But the specific v-shape of the Manu and the last-second pop that sends up an unprecedented plume of water could well be New Zealand-made.
Rice said there was an overlooked level of skill behind practitioners of the perfect Manu that he hopes will find some recognition through the event.
“There’s a lot of skill involved. It can quite often be about the height, and then timing the technique you use when you hit the water,” he said. “You learn by feel.”
The event will allow participants to choose leaping height, with adults able to choose to dive from up to eight metres.
Water safety advocate Rob Hewitt is an ambassador for the event.
He’s got his own history with facing the risks of being in water – in 2006, the ex-navy diver was lost floating at sea for 75 hours following a diving trip gone wrong off the Kāpiti Coast.
Since then, he’s been advocating for water safety, especially for Māori and Pasifika who may have a different relationship with the sea than Pākeha.
“A lot of Māori are out there working,” he said. “We’re not going to the sea to swim between the flags or sunbathe – the purpose is to get kai.”
He said the pressures of poverty and the desire to connect with traditional practises see many Māori diving for kina or crayfish, and the rising cost of a tank full of petrol to reach the coast may increase the likelihood of food gatherers heading out in choppy waters.
It’s the kind of water activity that water safety campaigns haven’t reached in the past, although Hewitt said there was a much better variety of information available nowadays.
He’s part of the Manu competition partly to continue that and spread a message of safe water recreation to a group of people that don’t necessarily get reached by traditional safety messaging.
“We’re trying to target these groups, whether it’s through TikTok or other ways,” he said. “Wherever there’s a body of water, there’s probably somebody doing a Manu – but we’re not always aware of the dangers.”
He said the answer was to check water depth and current strength before jumping, and giving previous jumpers plenty of time to get out of the way before taking your turn.
It’s also about making sure people with lower swimming ability are thinking carefully about the risk level in an activity where peer pressure plays a large role.
“Manus always were about competition,” Hewitt said. “This is just formalising it.”
Registrations opened on Wednesday for the Z Manu World Champs for five qualifier events across Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and Auckland. These will be followed by a final at Auckland’s Viaduct on March 9, 2024.
