Stephen’s Ocean’s 7 attempt is very expensive. He is getting a lot of support from friends and supporters in Ballydehob, but it’s a small town. And some people have asked here and elsewhere for fundraising links for Stephen.
(I accidentally sent out a brief version of this post yesterday to subscribers, sorry about that).
Some of you will have already seen Stephen’s own post-Cook swim report. He emailed me on Saturday night so I can put it up here. He titled it a “Widowmaker swim”. Stephen is not prone to exaggeration so for him to say this, well it’s a sign of extreme conditions. I’m leaving his report untouched, as you get a better feeling for his exhaustion and elation. His time was just under 13 hours.
He was on his way directly to Hawaii yesterday for the very slight chance he’s get a weather window, but the pilot wasn’t very optimistic. We all have our fingers crossed for him.
In yesterday’s (deleted) post I mentioned the horrendous cost (especially Tsugaru) for Stephen. I’ve asked one of the team if they can give me any details for an account or fundraising page that people who wish can contribute directly to. I’ll update as soon as I have anything.
The Philip Rush mentioned is a famous English Channel swimmer (single, two-way AND three-way), International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame, organiser and head of the Cook Strait Association.
From Stephen:
His old man Just an update on the cook strait swim. Has been a great trip to new Zealand meeting incredible people once again Coming to the other side of the world I thought it would be very lonely as I traveled alone but the Irish in Wellington have been incredible and looked after me and helped all week Dermot in the D4 bar fed me all week and Roslyn Murphy and Marie came on the boat as support team. The positivity was overwhelming and the swim is more theirs then mine as I could not let them down. We got in on Friday after an aborted attempt on valentines day where we steamed out had a look and Philip rush the swim coordinator and head man makes the call he supply’s a five man team who’s only mission is to get you across very professional and all I have to worry about is the swim which is enough. The call came through on Thursday that we had a chance on Friday after 3 Days of gales I was delighted had been training all week in Wellington harbour and this was our only chance this week as tides would be gone and I was due to fly on Sunday 19 no pressure then. Friday was flat calm with sun shining as we steamed over to the south island to start swim so could not be better was well prepped and rested after flight down passing the brothers which are two rock near south island Philip gave me the ok to grease up stretch and get ready it is so unpredictable here but until you are getting in the water you do not believe its happening on this swim Philip is right next to you for the whole swim In a small rib and the larger boat lays off in support for any thing that you need . Finally into the water which was surprisingly cold I swam into the rocks and the guys guide me to a small beach I managed to stand up quick pictures and clocks started Ann’s away huge relief to be swimming. First 4 hours was heaven screaming along in the water at 54 strokes per minute perfect conditions. Stomach fine feeds great smooth and quick good communication with Philip and following his directions was simple . We had tracker on for this trip so people could watch it live on their computer in the fifth hour the northerly wind starting to come up sooner then forecast this worked against the tide which was coming southerly to create 6-8 swells and the wind kept me cold in the water even though sun was shining. We swam on through say encountering only a couple of shark which I never seen but Philip and crew spotted they stayed for about an hour inquisitive I guess . The weather continued to deteriorate through the afternoon the poor girls on the large boat being seasick but still updating everyone with texts and Facebook and recording my stroke rest throughout the day great people. The tide was just trying to kill me we had to cross over it so when it changed we could use it to bring us in god was testing us to the limit for long Periods it felt as if I was not moving at all but stroking harder then ever prayers and mantras were used over and over never looking forward just at Philip breathing every six strokes due to the swells now tough stuff no point moaning this is what i wanted this is My swim do I give up and spend the rest of my time in regret no. Just cannot happen . We are sweet around the point by tide and miss landing. Ending up in another bay where god seemed to be moving furniture Jesus it was rough darkness fell lights on mask and trunks we carried on wishing to get out every time I stopped in despair I lost 50 metres cruel water Philip explains that I only have 1 k to. Do I can make out buildings on shore where a electric power line runs comes ashore from south island so close now close I keep telling my self Philip fucks me out of my doubts and keeps me going as I am exausted and close to death. It take3 hours just to swim 1.5 k In the end and when I touch rock there was no joy i just cursed that piece of rock and grabbed hold of it swim done I had to get back to rub which was being covered in waves guys soaked and freezing from the day incredible people who got me over the cook straits I clamber he’d first into bottom of the boat telling the to get the f—k out of there back to main boat in shock now pucking and hypothermic after swim they clean lanolin of as best as can be done and get me dressed as quick as possible huge joy and relief all round I had been very lucky Philip explains that they had never had a swim finish I such rough conditions down on the floor of the boat for the steam back safest place to start recovering dry retching and puking acid all the way back everyone in high spirits how could I have let these people down truly a team effort very rough slow steam against 24 knot northerly wind . At last we come into are berth o be meat by over 100 irish people draped in Tri colours who had waited hours for us I was overcome and in tears at this these guys are are loss but new zealand s gain and it is great to know they are here as the Irish never give up adapt overcome and succeed . Huge community help and involvement back home with no one sleeping in Ballydehob and castledermot all of this I used to get over thanks to everyone for prayers and belief . Post swim badly badly burnt on backs of legs and face shoulders good freeing up getting ready to fly to Hawaii tomorrow very tired but delighted to be alive told death to get lost in the end we Prevailed. I have no word for how great the people and new zealand has been to me I am humbled. By it all thank you all I can never repay the debt I owe Kind regards Steve redmond Hope this is not too Crazy sir
I’m sure 99% of you know by now that Stephen was successful on Ocean’s Seven crossing number 5, finishing this morning (GMT) but just in case you are part of the 1% …
CONGRATULATIONS STEPHEN!
(I was away swimming today, he was only about 1k from land when we started, and Lisa and Liz updated us during the session).
I’ve covered a few of swimming books a long time ago, two of the big books of our sport Kathy Watson’s The Crossing and Peggy Lee Dean’s Open Water Swimming and Bill Sweetenham’s Championship Swim Training. A few of the guys are excellent at covering open water swimming books, particularly Mark Robson‘s links of the classics of our sport and Evan recently had a great review of Wind, Waves and Sunburn.
I’ve recently read and really enjoyed Haruki Murakami’s short What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I’ve long had an interest in books about adventure and endurance and have found wisdom about swimming in many books in other areas.
Murakami is Japan’s most famous and successful novelist and he’s been a marathon runner all his life. Anyone who has spent thirty years at endurance running is sure to have words of wisdom and being an author, just as important, they will be able to articulate something so many of us struggle with.
It struck me immediately that in much of the book you could replace the word running with swimming and it perfectly would describe long distance swimming.
Since I have an e-book version, it was easy to verify and display this hypothesis. I just converted the file type and replaced the words run, runner and running with swim, swimmer and swimming.
One swimmer told of a mantra his older brother, also a swimmer, had taught him which he’s pondered ever since he began swimming. Here it is: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re swimming and you start to think, Man this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the swimmer himself. This pretty much sums up the most important aspect of marathon swimming.
The author also has done some triathlons, so he actually talks about swimming a bit, but from the triathlon point of view, which may be of use to triathletes and beginning open water racers, (he talks about the full contact nature of open water racing), but there is an irony that when he is speaking about swimming it is of less interest to me.
Murakami prefers marathons and the book is partly his writing life and how he finds running essential to maintain his energy levels for what he considers both a physically and mentally tough job, that of writing but it is also partly about training for a specific race, the New York Marathon. Of particular interest to me was his description, written just days after finishing of running a 64 mile Ultramarathon in Japan. I wrote my own English Channel description up pretty quickly, something now everyone does, and Finbarr recently mentioned in his guest article, the details fade. Writing my own account down was one of the most personally valuable things I’ve ever done, (and no it still hasn’t appeared on anywhere publicly) and have given me access to my feelings and memories, in the way that writing down a dream immediately after you wake gives you entry back into your dream state.
I found a great convergence between Murakami’s description of his ultramarathon and my own English Channel. Once again I’ve changed runner to swimmer and changed the distance to the distance of my Channel swim.
Either way, when I look back on that [swim] now I can see that it had a lot of meaning for me as a [swimmer]. I don’t know what sort of general significance swimming [forty] miles by yourself has, but as an action that deviates from the ordinary yet doesn’t violate basic values, you’d expect it to afford you a special sort of self-awareness. It should add a few new elements to your inventory in understanding who you are. And as a result, your view of your life, its colors and shape, should be transformed. More or less, for better or for worse, this happened to me, and I was transformed.
I’ve used that word transformed myself previously, though I’ve used other words like redeemed also. The value of this book for any endurance athlete should be obvious. It’s short, concisely written and in a very clear and almost deceptively simple voice. I highly recommend it to distance swimmers because as we know the mechanics are less important than the mind. Knowledge of or interest in running is utterly unnecessary.
Owen is one of the really special young people we are occasionally lucky to meet. Another Sandycove swimmer, Owen was the youngest ever Irish person to swim the English Channel at the age of 16, and not that but was blazingly fast. For those of us infected with the Channel bug, we understand how extraordinary this is, as for most of us our age is actually an advantage to completing the Channel, giving us reserves we badly need, and few of us would think seriously about such a task at such an age. In fact he and Lisa both had Lance Oram as pilots, and Owen was getting off the boat when Lisa was getting on.
Not finished there he also completed the Gibraltar Strait last year, organises the annual Blackwater swim, (now a big swim in our local calender), has been a recipient of a National People Of The Year Award, has been the Irish Long Distance Swimming Association representative for the south of Ireland, is organising this year’s Irish Channel Party (a big deal) and continues to complete a series of first-ever swims along the Irish South Coast such as Around Sherkin Island. He is hugely popular with our whole group and I’d like to say I swim with him more but I can’t keep up with him. Oh, he’s currently in college.
It’s an honour, as always, for me to feature a guest post from him. Unsurprisingly for those who know Owen, his post is very considered of the future of open water swimming in Ireland. And I feel confident that with Owen, Chris Bryan, and another young swimmer in our group, Billy “The Phenom” Mulcahy, the future of Irish Open Water Swimming is in good hands.
***
[T]his post [..] reminds me of when I had my own swimming blog and never used to update it! The though of having to write full sentences just scares me. Anyway, I’ve started now so I might as well keep going…
“If you could change one thing about this sport, what would it be?”
For anyone that loves the sport of open-water swimming, it can be difficult to think of anything that you might like to change about it. However, I’m sure that most people would agree that one very positive change would be to have more people taking part in and enjoying our sport in Ireland. In other places, e.g. South Africa, Australia, USA and Great Britain, open-water swimming is well-established and popular sport. Why then, aren’t there more people enjoying the sport here in Ireland, surely one of the world’s greatest swimming locations?
I’ll leave you to think about that for a while. As usual, it’s taken me ages to start writing but now that I’ve started I can’t stop!
In my experience, there are a number of long-standing barriers that prevent many people in Ireland from getting the chance to even get a taste of the sport. It must be said that these barriers are held up from both inside and outside the sport, that’s what makes the so strong!
One of the main barriers preventing people from sampling open-water swimming for themselves is the stereotypical view of the sport. Many people outside of open-water swimming do not even see it as a sport, they have visions of an elitist, misogynistic, backward pastime where high-minded, overweight, old and middle-aged men take a weekly skinny-dip in the sea to escape from their families and remind themselves of how they’re made of steel. I’m not joking, that is the typical Irish view of open-water swimming. People obviously don’t want to be associated with such activities so avoid real open-water swimming also. Hopefully the televised Olympic 10 km is helping to change this view.
Local authorities believe that jumping off of piers and bridges in GAA* shorts in June is open-water swimming and this has prompted them to erect “No Swimming” signs at favourite swimming locations all around the country. I have on occasion been cautioned by people associated with the local council for swimming at one of my main training spots!
Certain conservative elements within our sport would rather keep it all for themselves. One of their main methods of doing this is by enforcing an outright ban on all wetsuits, and when they are forced to accept wetsuited swimmers they insist on leaving all non-wetsuited swimmers start first in races “to make them feel more important”. I heard that last quote at a meeting and was shocked that the organizer of the swim in question was praised for this! The use of a handicapping system and the enforcement of ridiculous age limits are also widely used techniques to prevent growth of the sport.
The single largest obstacle to increased participation in open-water swimming comes from outside the sport itself but from within the aquatics spectrum. Since open-water swimming is essentially swimming in any location other than a pool, pool swimming is the natural feeder sport for open-water swimming in most parts of Ireland (surf-rescue is a big feeder in counties such as Clare**). Due to the respective age profiles of the two sports, one would expect to see a natural progression of many young swimmers from pool swimming to open-water swimming. Unfortunately, this is not the case in Ireland. Many swimming clubs in Ireland have very negative attitudes towards open-water swimming and are not one bit pleased about their members taking part in open-water swimming. Some have begun to spread myths to swimmers and parents about how bad it is for their technique and their muscles, etc. I know of one club which is currently going down the line of expressly forbidding their members from swimming in the open-water! How is our sport supposed to survive without a steady flow of young blood and fresh ideas?
At a national level, Swim Ireland gives the impression that open-water swimming is nothing but a nuisance to them. The largely technocratic National Open-Water Committee seems to have been completely disbanded and, to the best of my knowledge, we only have one high performance place for open-water! That swimmer, by the way, is Chris Bryan – best of luck to him for the coming season! A serious change in attitude is needed at a national level.
Well, that’s pretty much my rant about what the problem is. In [the next part] I will try to offer some solutions and highlight where efforts are being made…
So now that we have established what the root causes of the problem are we can figure how to fix it? Here are a few of my own suggestions:
We need to change people’s long-held view of the sport. How do we do it? Organize more swims and get the local community involved so that they can see for themselves what the sport is really like. We can also encourage people to watch the Olympic 10 km in London this year so that they can see competitive open-water swimming at the highest level.
Educate local authorities on what our activities involve and convince them that we are responsible, safety-conscious people who are not an insurance risk to them, i.e. they don’t need to bam us from swimming!
Convince conservative elements within the sport that increased participation is a good thing and not a threat. There will be a few who will want to keep the circle small so that they can just keep “passing around the trophy”, diplomacy will not work on them. Lift all of these unnecessary bans on wetsuits so that we can include those who simply can’t swim without them and triathletes. End the use of handicapping, especially for large races as it leads to potentially dangerous situations at the end of a race, and let’s get back to the common sense idea that whoever is fastest wins! It’s nice to win something every so often but who cares once you’re having fun?
Encourage club swimmers to try open-water swimming. Trying it isn’t going to hurt them, if they like it then they’ll stick with it, if they don’t then they just stay in the pool, what’s the big deal? In my view, every club should have a water polo squad, a diving squad, a synchro-squad and an open-water squad. I would love to see all swimming clubs progress to becoming aquatics clubs, I can see this benefiting everyone!
Swim Ireland need to some to the realization that open-water is a legitimate aquatic discipline and as such it is entitled to appropriate coordination and funding. Given the opportunity, I think open-water could be a potential area of medal winning for Ireland at the Olympics.
Maybe these might work, maybe they mightn’t, who knows unless we try? Have you got any ideas of your own? If you do, please share them with others and let’s grow this great sport. It has so much potential here in Ireland, let’s do it some justice…
Now that I’m almost finished, I’d just like to acknowledge a few people who have done a lot for open-water swimming:
Ned Denison – has done Trojan work in recruitment of both swimmers and event organizers and has encouraged so many people around the world to set big goals, and achieve them. Always leading by example, Ned is himself one of Ireland’s most accomplished open-water swimmers. Without him, the Sandycove group would not be what it is today.
Marie Murphy RIP – of Newry & Mourne SC gave the last few year’s of her life to developing the very successful Camlough Lake group in Northern Ireland. She encouraged so many young swimmers into the open-water and did so as part of the club program. She also set up the Junior Championships at Camlough with Pádraig Mallon and these have been very successful.
David Walliams – much loved comedian, swam the English Channel in [I think] 2008 for Sport Relief UK and subsequently swam the Straits of Gibraltar and the River Thames, raising millions of GB£ for charity. His high profile swims have shown the public what our sport is really about.
FINA and the IOC – have done an awful lot in recent years by running high level open-water races all around the world. Giving the top athletes an arena as they have is always raising the profile of the sport and gaining respect for the top competitors.
Finally stopped writing. Oh, I just remembered that I would like to thank Donal for letting plug my event:
Apologies that the website is still “under construction”. Like Iarann-Ród Éireann***, and open-water swimming in Ireland, it’s not there yet but it’s getting there…
Owen’s English Channel Videos.
Part 1 ,
Part 2
People of the Year Awards:
*GAA: the Gaelic Athletic Association, the amateur organising body for traditional Irish sports, the largest organisation in Ireland and one of the largest amateur organisations in the entire world
** County on the Irish West Coast, famous for its high cliffs and rough waters
*** Iarann-Ród Éireann: Irish name for Irish Rail
I’ve started updating the openwaterpedia.com details for the Sandycove swimmers. I’m having problems adding Owen at the moment. Here’s a list of his swims in the interim:
Around Lizard Point (7.5 km – Kynance Cove to Cadgwith) – First Time Recorded – 26th July 2008, 1 hr 59 mins, aged 15 yrs.
Cork City to Myrtleville (26 km) – First Time Recorded – 4th July 2009, 5 hrs 47 mins, aged 16 yrs.
English Channel Solo – 21st September 2009, 10 hrs 19 mins (fastest born in ROI), aged 16 yrs (youngest from IOI).
Straits of Gibraltar Solo – 22nd July 2010, 3 hrs 52 mins, aged 17 yrs.
Around Sherkin Island (16 km) – First Time Recorded – 31st August 2011, 3 hrs 58 mins.
Irish Water Monster, Stephen Redmond rescheduled his remaining Ocean’s Seven swims during the winter. (I’d been meaning to ask him to write again about them).
But anyway, he is currently in New Zealand for his first big swim of this year hoping tackling the Cook Strait hopefully starting at 5pm GMT tonight. Open water swimmers worldwide but especially the Irish swimmers are all behind him wishing him success.
Update: Well the tracker looked odd. According to Lisa, the swim was called off for tonight. Let’s hope there is a weather window tomorrow. I think only marathon swimmers and climbers understand this pressure.
