Sydney's iconic Bondi Beach has revisited its past with more than 100 lifesavers commemorating Australia's largest mass surf rescue ahead of the 80th anniversary of the tragedy.
About 250 swimmers were swept out into the deep on what became known as Black Sunday - February 6, 1938 - when the backwash from three enormous waves took them by surprise.
What's believed to have been a flash rip resulted in 35 unconscious patients and five drowning deaths.
On Sunday, those scenes of panic were re-enacted as lifesavers demonstrated the remarkable rescue mission using primitive technology of the late 1930s.
"It was quite an operation," President of Bondi Surf Bathers' Life Saving Club Jacob Waks told AAP.
Long before the days of jetskis and inflatable rescue boats, lifesavers used heavy wooden boards.
However their prime pieces of equipment were heavy wooden frames that fed spools of rope out to people in trouble.
While one rescuer was attached to the rope on a belt and swam out, the tool required five people to operate it and on Black Sunday seven spools sprang into action.
"There were a lot of accounts of people pulling on the ropes and jumping on others to try and get themselves to safety," Mr Waks said.
To make matters worse, many desperate rescuers ran in without any equipment and one of the fatalities was a member of the public who tried to help.
"That's something that we try to communicate - that you need to be careful of your own skill level too," Mr Waks added.
He said Black Sunday impacted not only modern-day rescue techniques but boosted the level of awareness.
"There are a lot of reports of people that were visiting Australia and they took it back with them to their countries, saying that this is a volunteer system," Mr Waks said.
"There's not too many services in the world where you're getting volunteers saving other people's lives."
