Port Macquarie finish seventh at Ocean Thunder Surf Boat Series on February 5

By the second time around at Collaroy last weekend they had made an impression on every other crew they competed against.

Ocean Thunder is an annual professional elite surfboat series held in Sydney which attracts the best surf rowers in the world.

So sweep Mark van Aalderan was understandably satisfied with a seventh-place finish - a more than respectable result to leave Sydney with.

"We're starting to put our little area on the map," van Aalderan said.

"Our girls grew 10-feet tall over the weekend and now crews are going to start looking over their shoulder and can see us coming."

Now, van Aalderan wants the Gun Mum's to continue their improvement - and who knows, a rare Ocean Thunder race win may not be too far away.

"They didn't know what to expect in the first round and they were a little bit dizzy-headed on the whole thing," van Aalderan said.

"It was good to get that out of the way with them and this round we really concentrated on their head space and getting that right and performing in the boat. They turned it around and it was fantastic.

"They got knocked out in the semi-final after we got hit by a wave and that was it. If they got through that, they would have been in the final."

Van Aalderan is no stranger to the Ocean Thunder after he competed with Ocean Beach on the Central Coast so he knows what needs to change.

But he's confident the crew of Sarah Little, Nikki Stafford, Emma Schuch and Corinne Stephenson have what it takes.

They will, however, need to work hard to achieve it.

"Our little saying is believe in the process and rowers don't realise that until they can see it happening and then when they can they start believing in themselves," he said.

"There's still a lot of improvement, but it's still patchy at the moment. If we can hook the row to sea a lot better ... the sky's the limit.

"These girls can win anything."

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