Bristol Channel Success, Izzy, Hamish and Susy Conquer The 2nd Crossing of The Original Triple Crown
Capturing the sheer grit and determination of the Susy and Izzy at full throttle leaving Devon
Captains log – The story of the swim by Tom Chapman, the Pilot, Credit to Off The Slip Tom’s alter ego.
Hamish (Mr McCarthy (Sir)) contacted me quite a while back and explained he runs the long distance swim club at Wivey Pool and Taunton School. He spent a long time explaining these are “proper” swimmers and reeled off a VERY long list of previous seriously impressive swims. The Bristol Channel being their “local” channel, it was high time they had that chance! We had a very long chat about the two fourteen year old swimmers he wanted to bring, the previous accomplishments and their expected pace and planned quite an ambitious Glenthorne Porthcawl for them! Glenthorne Porthcawl is such an unbelievably difficult swim for the pilot boat to execute, start times have to be planned to the absolute tee based on the swimmer and the tide to get in the right place towards the end of the swim to catch the tide to Porthcawl, avoiding the sandbanks and Tusker rock and picking up the push home. You cant really fight the second strongest tide in the world!
We locked out of Porthcawl in the middle of a perfect night, no wind and clear skies. Transiting to Devon, we had a little bit of a wait for the right start time but what a beautiful setting, Glenthorne bay, below the country house nestled in the remote Devon cliffs. As our swimmer finally swam ashore, we has great conditions and the sun was just about to come up. Susy gingerly climbed out of the barnicled rocks, raised her hand and cautiously clambered back in and swam back out to the boat. It was on, we were away!
As soon as we cleared Foreland Point. the wind started to build. This wasn’t forecast. Every forecast had less than 5 knots, my usual super reliable go-to app had 2-5knts. We had 12 gusting 15. When the water moves as fast as ours does, 15 knots means waves, big ones. The sea was very confused with waves coming from all over the place. Channel swimming is not supposed to be easy and the Bristol Channel had seen her opportunity for an easy win, her opportunity to send the swimmers home early. She hadn’t however factored on how well Hamish had trained them; better than most adults dare I say! They knew what to do. They rolled with it, they kept fighting, kept their heads down and clawed their way forward. The channel had asked her questions early and been met with a solid response. After beasting all three of them for an hour each, she seemed satisfied with their answers and the wind calmed (to where it was forecast!) and the sea flattened off.
With calm seas, the boat surged North. After the first turn of the tide we began moving East for the next 6 hours; the game now to make as much progress as possible and drop us into a position around the sand banks to pick up the tide to Porthcawl. The tide runs up and down the coast at 3 knots even on a neap tide (and 5 on a spring!). Get your navigation wrong and don’t get into that pocket and the end of your swim is going to be incredibly tough. You really dont want a 3 knot tide washing you back down the coast at the end of a channel swim!! Get it right and that tide is behind you, you will get absolutely sent up the coast to Porthcawl!
The second and third rotations were superb. All three swimmers made fabulous use of the calm seas and put us into the perfect position. When Hamish entered the water for his third swim, we were a few hundred yards short of the gap in the middle of the bank. The plot was perfect. I’ve said it a lot of times but this swim is so difficult to plot because there are so many factors that all need to come together, size of the tide, the swimmer speed, the start time. Almost always, one of those factors isn’t quite right and there’s an element of forcing the swimmer into the right position. That shows on the plots and in the swim times. As we crossed the bank, our track was perfect. The tide picked us up and sent us! The fight at the start of the day now was about to pay off big time. We were on the home stretch. The tide now was directly behind us, it was running directly to Porthcawl and for the next few hours, it was just going to get stronger and stronger!!
Susy jumped in with a few miles to go and gave it her all. She swam past Tusker Rock, Past Ogmore by sea, past the river marking the boundary for the Original Triple Crown Swim. We pushed on. This swim isn’t a traditional channel swim; we aren’t aiming for the shortest point. Back in the 70’s, King of the [English] Channel, Kevin Murphy swam from Glenthorne to Sandy Bay. He fought the tide. He could have finished several miles earlier, but he didn’t. He swam up the coast and put it on the beach in the middle of town. He took 15 hours. We were in our 9th hour, a couple of km out and closing in at 5 kilometers an hour.
With 9 hrs 55 on the clock, we rounded the final headland and pointed the boat directly at Sandy Bay. The ten hour changeover simply became Izzy jumping in (with Mr McCarthy), taking over as the lead swimmer and swimming the whole team into the beach to stop the clock on an unofficial 10hours 4 minutes. What a swim.
Inspiring stuff to see what Hamish is building with the Schools Long Distance Club and the incredible approach of the next generation of channel swimmers. The Bristol Channel did not make that swim easy and they had all the answers. They absolutely nailed it. When I spoke to Hamish last year and he was trying to persuade me to take ‘a bunch of kids’ I distinctly remember him telling me “they are only kids but they are proper channel swimmers; we aren’t here to mess around”. I can confirm, they might be 14 but they are very, very serious channel swimmers and they now have an almost perfect track and one of the fastest Glenthorne to Porthcawl swims ever to prove it. We will watch the clubs future endeavors with great interest!