Piha Surf Life Saving Club

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Piha Surf Life Saving Club (sometimes called Piha Lifeguard Service) is a surf lifesaving club for the southern section of Piha, on the west coast of Auckland, New Zealand, some 45 km from Auckland City centre. The patrol is featured on the TVNZ reality show Piha Rescue, which is currently (May 2006) being broadcast Mondays at 7:30 PM on the channel TV ONE.

The club is the best known of 17 surf lifesaving clubs in the Northern Region of New Zealand, and possibly the best known club in the entire country. Its high profile is partly being due to its participation in the television series and partly through its location on one of the country's most popular surfing beaches. The beach is also a regular venue for national surfing championshipsand the annual "big wave challenge", part of the national surf life saving championships.

The club was founded in 1934, qand as such is the oldest club on Auckland's west coast. It pioneered the use of surf rescue boats in New Zealand, with the country's first surf boat, launched in 1936. The club was the inaugural winner of the national surf boat championship series, held at Wellington's Lyall Bay in 1940 ^[1].

Piha has been the home club of several national champions in surf life saving and other sports, among them former Commonwealth Games swimming gold medallist Dave Gerrard and national boxing champion Jackie Jenkins.