New Website Location For The Daily News

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For the latest and most comprehensive news coverage of exploits, personalities, trends, commentary, records, services and products of the open water swimming world, get your daily fix of open water swimming at the new Daily News of Open Water Swimming.

Copyright © 2011 by World Open Water Swimming Association

English Channel Swimming Survey

Dr. Julie Bradshaw MBE, Secretary of the Channel Swimming Association Ltd, sent the following survey questions to the individuals who completed a crossing of the English Channel. The questions include the following:



General:
1. How many times have you swum the channel?
2. What age were you?
3. In what time did you swim the Channel?

Preparation:
1. How long in advance did you begin to start training to swim the Channel?
2. What was your reason for doing so?
3. How many hours did you train on average per day?
4. Did the number of hours increase as you trained?
5. What did your training consist of?
6. Did you train in the gym as well as in the pool?
7. Did you train any particular muscle groups or your whole body?
8. How did you combine your training with the rest of your life?
9. Were you working etc whilst you were training?
10. Did you have to follow a special diet whilst training to swim the Channel?
11. Why or why not?
12. Did you have to undergo any health checks before you were allowed to swim the Channel?
13. How far in advance did you begin to acclimatise to the conditions of the Channel?
14. Had you swum a comparable distance before you swam the Channel?

The Swim
1. What did you eat whilst swimming the channel?
2. How did you eat?
3. Which swimming stroke did you use?
4. Did you adapt it at all?
5. On which date did you swim the channel?
6. Was your swim affected by the tides?
7. Did you plan your swim with the tides in mind?
8. Did you risk your health at all as you swam the channel?
9. Did you become at all ill?
10. How did you avoid hypothermia?
11. Did you only swim when it was light?
12. Or did you also have to swim when it was dark?
13. Did you come across a lot of sea life?
14. If so what exactly?
15. Did it pose a problem to you?
16. How many people were in the support boat?
17. How did you swim without getting in the way of ferries and other craft?
18. Did you come across any whilst you were swimming?
19. What was the closest distance you got to one?

Other
1. Did you swim to swim or did you also collect money for charity? If so which one and why?
2. Was it a prime motivator?
3. If you did not swim the channel for charity, what was your primary motivation?
4. How many parts of swimming the channel are individual and how many are team work?
5. Would you please send a copy of your filled in questionnaire to the CSA.

Photo of Julie Bradshaw is from her website and her record-setting 34 hour 32 minute triple relay crossing of Loch Ness. Among Bradshaw's many open water swimming accomplishments was an incredible 14 hour 18 minute crossing of the English Channel - at the age of 38 - doing nothing but BUTTERFLY!

How Crowded is the Channel?

Crossings of the English Channel are increasing year by year. The official Channel Swimming & Piloting Federation website provides the list of successful swimmers.

The Channel Swimming & Piloting Federation had 178 swim starts and the Channel Swimming Association had 36 successful crossings to date (including relays).

Photo of English Channel record holder Petar Stoychev by Pei Qingsheng.

Calm Waters - Rare Triumph

Swimming World Magazine reported a very rare successful swim across the North Channel - only the 9th successful crossing in history since it was first achieved in 1947.

Swimming World Magazine's account of Colleen Blair's triumphant swim is here. Colleen will soon be interviewed by Swimming World Magazine's Morning Swim Show. Details to follow.

Photo of Colleen Blair provided by Martin Cullen.

Success is a Journey, Not a Destination

Open water swimmers accept the risk that every swim, every race and every challenge will not be successful. At the same time, they also understand success is a relative term.

One such adventure was brought to us by Martin Cullen, an official observer with the Irish Long Distance Swimming Association.

42-year-old Anne Marie Ward, a Disability Services Manager from Ulster, Ireland, accepted the challenge of crossing the treacherous North Channel.

The North Channel (Irish Channel) is a 21.6-mile (40K) channel between northern Ireland and southwestern Scotland and has been successfully crossed by only 9 people to date. The water is cold even in summer, the chill factor is even colder and a sea of jellyfish is the norm. Accounting for the tides, the actual swim distance is more like 35 miles.

The history of the North Channel crossings has seen more failures than successes. Only two swimmers have completed the swim on their first attempt: Kevin Murphy, who has swum the English Channel 34 times, and Colm O'Neill from Dublin.

One swimmer died in his attempt. Two swimmers almost drowned, including Alison Streeter, who ultimately crossed the North Channel three times and the English Channel 43 times.

AnneMarie’s swim started in the dark at 4:16 am from the Irish coast in The Gobblins, North of Belfast Lough. With two night sticks tied to her swim suit, Anne Marie was escorted by an experienced team including a film crew from the Irish-language television channel TG4 who were filming her attempt as part of a series about amazing feats by amazing women.

Through the morning, Anne Marie faced strong winds, overcast skies and water between 13.7ºC - 14.4ºC (56.6ºF - 57.9ºF). Early afternoon came without change in the conditions. Still AnneMarie forged on. As she swam through the early evening, her crew continued to feed her with High 5, an isotonic drink with carbohydrates and electrolytes, tea and water.

But, after 15 hours fighting the cold, jellyfish, wind, waves and cramps, AnneMarie’s stroke rate began to decrease and her left arm was no longer clearing the surface of the water.

Psychologically, it was difficult as AnneMarie started in the early morning darkness, swam through an overcast morning and afternoon, and was now facing swimming in the dark again as night fell. She could never see the Scottish coast as it was obscured by a sea mist. With nightfall, the rains started as AnneMarie struggled onwards, but without great progress. Her 1-knot-per-hour speed would not be fast enough to beat the changing tides. Facing an oncoming tides, AnneMarie would be pushed away from her goal at an estimate rate of 2-3 knots per hour.

17 hours and 12 minutes after she started, it was decided to call AnneMarie’s swim off at 9:26 pm. Still four miles off the Scottish coast north of Portpatrick, her pilot, Brian Meharg, and support crew agreed that AnneMarie had given it her all.

She was called over to the escort boat and was informed of the situation. AnneMarie graciously accepted her crew’s decision, climbed on board and apologized for letting everyone down. She was wrapped in two sleeping bags to get her core body temperature back to normal, but wanted to remain on deck with her crew.

As Martin described, and as open water swimmers can attest, “the only failure is not to try.”

Quote by Arthur Ashe. Photos of Anne Marie Ward from Martin Cullen.

Copyright © 2008 by World Open Water Swimming Association

Post-Olympic Open Water Swimming

The Olympic 10K Marathon Swim blog is expanding to cover all aspects of open water swimming including solo swims, relays, World Cup races, Grand Prix races, marathon swims, circumnavigation swims and charity swims in lakes, rivers, oceans, bays, dams, reservoirs and channels around the world.

Whether you are a newcomer or pro, feel free to email us information, race results, photos or interesting stories to share with the global open water swimming community.

The tagline of Olympic 10K Marathon Swim continues: No Guts, No Glory. No Pain, No Gain. No Risk, No Reward. No Lanes, No Lines. No Walls, No Mercy.

For more details, go to 10Kswim.com.