Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. During the fifth hour, Trent and Damián had discussed when Damián would come in as support swimmer. Trent requested Damián for the last hour. Around this time Mike also told Trent to take a double-concentration feed for his next feed, “for a boost” but Trent didn’t want…
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. All this time, we’d been in a race, Trent, the crew, Gallivant. Though there were other Solos out that day, including Chloë McCardel‘s second three-way record attempt, (she made it to about two hours into the third leg) Trent’s race was with a ghost, or shall I say, ghostly…
Part 1. Part 2. Leaving Shakespeare Beach, Trent swam straight for the previously discussed port side of Gallivant. Is this time to talk about port and starboard? These are not useless terms, useful only to professional sailors. Port and starboard are highly useful and accurate terms intended to avoid confusion at sea. Confusion in dangerous…
Part 1 To step back a moment, the first post didn’t exactly explain why Owen and I were on the boat. I can only surmise that when Trent asked me to crew early on in the week, I think it was partly because we’d already been touch by email and Twitter, and partly because of…
As some of you know, I was fortunate enough to be crewing aboard Mike Oram’s Gallivant for FINA Grand Prix 2012 Winner Trent Grimsey‘s English Channel Record. And I know you want the details. How did that happen and what did I (we, Owen O’Keefe, Ireland’s youngest English Channel Soloist, aka the Fermoy Fish was…
Yes indeed, I was back in Dover last week once more. It’s over four years since I first visited Dover, and on leaving that first time, I swore I’d never return, and really meant it. I do believe my actual words were, well let’s just leave that. But it’s gotten so I now have to…
Remember 2010 here on loneswimmer.com? When one of the Magnificent Seven Soloed I posted their national flag. I haven’t done it since, not as from disrespect to any of my friends who have swum since, but just I guess because it was our thing. This post has been waiting for two years. I can’t express…
Captain Webb is synonymous with Dover for most swimmers. (Though I’ve never been able to figure out why his Dover memorial is situated so badly in front of a block of flats instead of in front of the sea). But his birthplace was Dawley, in Shropshire. I’ve read a few times, by people who haven’t seen it, that the…
Tragic Loss in the English Channel Today Dear Swimmers, It is with great sadness the Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation confirms the death an Irish swimmer whist attempting a solo crossing of the English Channel early this morning. Páraic Casey from Cork, Ireland began his swim at 9.13am on Saturday morning and was just 1km from the…
For some, there is no greater sporting event than the English Channel. Sporting event isn’t even a good description. The Australian surfer Nat Young once said the worst thing to happen surfing was that surfing was seen as a sport instead of art. Similarly, for most swimmers, Channel swimming should be thought more as a…
All Channel Swimmers get some or all the same questions, all the time. This is to help with reducing the mystery somewhat. Is it cold? This is the biggest myth. Actually it’s a little understood fact that since the mid Twentieth Century, London’s growing population has increased the heat of the Thames outflow, adding approximately 1.07…
Dover’s best known swimming Bed & Breakfast accommodation is Hubert House, but the B&Bs in Cork are better, (naturally, says a chorus of Corkonians). I know, I’ve stayed in both, and unlike Hubert House, Gabriel House on Summerhill in Cork is owned and run by an English Channel Soloist, Liam Maher, the tallest of The Magnificent Seven, and…
English Channel addicts will remember last year’s “Channel from an airplane” image. Here’s an improvement on that, the Channel as seen from the International Space Station, the ISS. Click for full fantastic resolution. If you are a Channel swimmer, be awed. I have to admit to having a weird feeling looking at it this way…
Ned Denison is part of the Sandycove group, started by Liz Buckley, Mag Buckley, (not related to each other or me), Stephen Black, Finbarr Hedderman and Mike Harris with a few other regulars along the way. This picture below is appropriate, it’s Ned doing the 2008 Irish Champion of Champion safety briefing. There are a bunch…
Hello friends, future friends, open water swimmers, readers, Aspirants and marathon swimmers! For some time Evan Morrison and some others and myself have been discussing global marathon swimming. Marathon swimming is a tiny but still growing sport. As a group, we wish to see marathon swimming continue to be celebrated and encouraged and confusion with other types…
Evan did a great 4-part series on open water marathon feeding and nutrition. I’ve covered the possible use of Choline supplementation and I’ve a long-standing request in with a friend for a guest post on the subject of further supplementation. Given some questions that have arisen though, it seems we haven’t covered enough of the…
From Pool to Open Water I started swimming before I started school, in fact I can’t remember not being able to swim. I swam competitively in Leeds reaching a high level, 1977: achieving English record -1500 free, 1978: representing GB at the European Juniors – 400 free , 1979-1981: GB senior international – 400 &…
There are swimming legends around the world. Little known outside our sport. Some past, some current. In a country with a very small population of only four million, Ireland is only occasionally successful in International Sport, and we celebrate our sporting heroes as a consequence. But in Open Water Marathon swimming, we excel. World Open…
I don’t like dietary supplements. B Complex, multivitamins etc. The little reading I’ve done so far on the subject indicates little or no benefit is gained from commercial multivitamins for endurance athletes But I don’t rule it out… Since my EC, (too late that is), I’ve had a few interesting conversations with an online friend…
There is a shared heritage of our international tribe and this is the man who started it all in 1875. In Dover this statue stands on the prom in front of the ugly flats, facing the sea, about 200 metes beyond Swimmer’s Beach towards the ferry port. Marathon swimming is a heritage and history of triumph…
I came across this recently, I’d forgotten the smaller version from Kathy Watson’s biography of Capt. Webb, The Crossing. Remember this?
Released by CS&PF Secretary (& King of the Channel) Kevin Murphy on email (I didn’t see that one first). There were swimmers out only two days ago on the last unbookable tide. Here’s the figures: Total swims: 124 Successful 87 Unsuccessful 37 Percentage of swims (solo and relay) that were successful = 70% Total solos:…
rant/ You are NOT a Channel swimmer until you COMPLETE one. Until then you are an Aspirant. Stop writing English Channel Swimmer or Channel Swimmer on blogs and email signatures when you haven’t swam a metre in the English Channel. Or any Channel. /rant EDIT: this isn’t aimed at people in general, but a couple of specific people.…
Change, change, change. Went to bed with fingers crossed for a chance. Woke to no apparent chance. Then … we just heard three CSA boats are out with speedies, the potentially very fast soloists, taking a chance of a window. All week Lisa & I have been telling people who don’t believe how fast it…
Senses sharp. Sub-surface there’s a susurus of sliding shingle. Smooth stones slip and shift and spill while a southerly soughs softly. The sun shines, and ships slip in and out, sailing to and from the Separation Zone, spiral smoke from stacks screws skywards. Seagulls skim and swoop. Solitary sandals on the steep shore of Swimmer’s…
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