As mentioned in the first part, this irregular series resulted from the great documentation that former CS&PF President and multiple English Channel swimmer Nick Adams generously shared with me from his copy of the relevant Fry’s Outdoor Magazine. The series quickly grew into an overview of the early years of marathon swimming. Part One and…
Kathy Watkin’s book The Crossing, (reviewed here), is the only currently available biography of Captain Matthew Webb. It is required reading for any English Channel Aspirant and certainly for anyone interested in the history of the sport of swimming as a whole, not just Channel swimming. Yet those of us who are familiar with detailed accounts of solo swims,…
It seems all the cool web kids are doing Infographics these days. Being neither cool, (more usually cold), nor a kid, I’ve created a few (I started just to see if I could create any at all) on disparate swimming subjects including revisiting some of this site’s most popular articles. Regular readers will by now probably realise that I…
August the 24th is the day in 1875 that Captain Matthew Webb successfully swam the English Channel, landing at Calais on his second attempt in under 22 hours. It’s the date that the sport of Channel and Marathon Swimming unofficially claims as its birth day, (disregarding previous unsuccessful attempts by Webb and others). So following a suggestion by…
This is a maelstrom. Indeed the very definition of such, as it’s the whirlpool at the base of Niagara Falls. It’s where Captain Matthew Webb tragically died on this day, July 24th, 1883. It was taken by a photographer zxo and it grabbed my attention immediately I saw it and they gave me permission to…
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…
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…
I came across this recently, I’d forgotten the smaller version from Kathy Watson’s biography of Capt. Webb, The Crossing. Remember this?
The story of Capt. Matthew Webb is the starting point for modern Open Water swimming. While there are other famous open water swims from before this time, Byron & Hellespont being the most famous, the dream of swimming the English channel was alive and well in the late 19th century, with other attempts before Webb’s…
LoneSwimmer 