Frequently Asked Questions

This list was developed in response to the many questions that I was (very) frequently asked. In case my British sense of humour does not translate well, most of the answers were a tad frivolous.

1. Why?

A very good question and not one that is easily answered. Each person's reasons will be different. A personal challenge. A sense of doing something very different. To get fit. To raise money for a charity... or perhaps all of the above! If you do it then you have plenty of time to consider reasons as you plod around Dover harbour or on your way to France!

2. Do you wear a wet suit?

Unfortunately not. Tri-athletes get to wear one but that's because the swimming part of a triathlon is just something to get over and done with, before the proper race on foot and on bike starts! The rules for Channel swimming specify that the swimmer should wear roughly what Matthew Webb wore on the first crossing - well, updated style obviously and with a Speedo logo!

3. Ah, but then you can always spread a load of grease all over you?

Unfortunately another myth here. "Channel grease" - a mix of 90% lanolin and 10% Vaseline petroleum jelly - is only applied to prevent friction burns (ala marathon running). It has little by way of insulating properties - ask any goose or turkey! On my swim, I just used Vaseline petroleum jelly - and jolly effective it was too!

4. No wet suit and no insulating grease... so how cold exactly is the Channel?

Well on May 1st it was about 52°F (11.1°C for those taught post imperial!) and on May 8th it was about 51°F (10.6°C). I know this because I went into the sea at Dover Harbour for those 2 weekends with the friendliest bunch of criminally insane people that you would ever want to swim the channel with. By the end of the season - when I swam - the temperature had risen to the heady heights of 60-65°F or 15°C-18°C

5. Okay, so back to question 1... why again?

Um... how about “Because it is there” or "Because I wanted to get to the other side"?

6. So how far is it across the Channel?

18.2 nautical miles, 21 land miles or 34 kilometres. The shortest distance across the Channel is from Shakespeare Beach, Dover, to Cap Gris Nez (the headland halfway between Calais and Boulogne).

Unfortunately I didn't quite make it to Cap Gris Nez...nor the calm of Wissant bay...but ended up at Sangatte. Mind you the French were very happy to see me...since more often visitors to Sangatte are heading to Dover rather than the other way around!

7. Did you do it by yourself or in a relay with others?

Solo. But having been in Astrid's support crew in July and only swum every 4th hour with her, I have a very high regard for Relay swimmers - it is so much easier to stay in the water and not feel sea sick!

8. How long did it take you?

The hardest thing to know is how long it will take you. Although it is quite important to have an idea so the pilot can plan the tides (and not end up a week later in Spain or Belgium!), performance on the day is dependent on many, many factors.

I originally thought that it would take me 15-16 hours based on my speed in Dover harbour. But I worried it might take even longer. As it turned out, I was half way in 6, close to France in 11 and took another 3 hours to struggle across the tides.

9. Do you have to swim further because of the tides?

The tides mainly wash you up and down the channel (rather than up and down the beach!). So inevitably you travel further with the tide than the 21 land miles to France. Equally the tide is doing much of the extra work. Where it causes problems is if you mis-time the crossing and the tides move you up or down the coast making you swim further. Or it turns as you approach the beach and you are swept out to sea again. Neither particularly attractive scenarios!

In total, as a crow flies my crossing would have been 34.5 kilometres. As I swam it, it was 61 kilometres. A noticeable difference!

10. What about sharks?

Are you kidding me? Nothing with a brain the size of a shark's would go into the cold and dirty water of the English Channel. Only jellyfish... and, of course, channel swimmers!

11. When did you do your swim?

I was booked to go with Chris Osmond, my pilot, on the first good tide during the week of the 5th September 2004. Unfortunately, in 2004, the English summer lived up to its reputation and was truly dreadful (click here for more details). For instance, on the 18th July in peak summer, I joined a number of swimmers on a 6 hour cold water qualifying swim. The swim was punctuated by thunder, lightning, rain and, would you believe it, hail the size of golf balls.

Whilst in 2003, the summer was nearly perfect and pilots ran out of swimmers on a number of tides, this year it was very difficult to get swimmers away - and even when they did the conditions were far from perfect. In the end, I became a big fan of multiple weather forecasting services and selected to go a day early on the 4th September. The disadvantage was a Spring tide. The advantage - a truly lovely day, one of the very few that summer.

12. What does the training involve?

Prior to May, the training was made up of weekday swimming pool sessions – primarily interval training. After May 1st, I switched to cold-water endurance swims – to build resistance to the cold and increase stamina. The cold-water swims were in Dover harbour at the weekends as directed by the inimitable Freda Streeter. Freda has coached her daughter, Alison Streeter, through 43 crossings including 1 three-way crossing and so knows what she is talking about!

The training camp rules are simple – turn up from the beginning of May at 10 am (9am when the swims got longer) and then swim for as long as Freda tells you to. And she only tells you your swim time when you are on the shore, in your swimming costume with cap and goggles on, ready to go!

A few people have got out early before their full time is up – but the frosty reception on shore was much colder than the water so the sensible ones went back in to complete their time!

After each swim, we all retired to a local restaurant called Chaplins for a full cooked breakfast. And, let me tell you, that breakfast is one of the few things that keeps you going during a 6 hour swim!!

13. How did training go?

Training was hard work but I stuck at it (see graph for individual cold water swims in minutes – gaps are due to corporate events that I couldn't miss!). In July, Freda said that we might be a little ahead of schedule - although she might have said that just to keep us motivated!

Although hard work, it was quite satisfying to look back as you passed each milestone. For instance a big milestone was when we completed the 6-hour cold-water qualification swim which is required by the channel swimming regulatory bodies (CSA & CSPF) before you can attempt the full crossing. At that point I knew that I was permitted to enter the water – whether I got out the other side was still another matter!

The penultimate milestone was a “split swim”. That is we did the full 15 hours of a channel crossing over 2 days (8 on Saturday and 7 on Sunday). Then it was just a case of putting together both swims on a single day!

14. Isn’t Dover harbour full of oil & stuff?

Well I wouldn’t say that it is the crystal clear, aqua-marine seas of the Caribbean. Equally it isn’t Alaska after the Exxon Valdez either! Visibility is pretty poor but it tastes fine – albeit very salty!!

15. How do you avoid the cross-channel ferries coming in and out of the harbour?

Actually this isn’t a problem because they go outside the break waters which we swim between. However they do seem to churn up the water – especially the Sea Cats – and create very cold patches that are unpleasant to swim through.

More risky to the swimmers are the other harbour users – especially rowing sculls. The sailing boats are pretty good at watching out – although they are frightening when they bear down on you at full speed, only to tack at the last moment. The sculls are much more worrying since they row backwards at speed and hold the record as the only vessels to hit a swimmer so far – resulting in a visit to casualty.

16. You looked quite brown during 2004. Have you been on lots of holidays?

Amazing as it might seem, the tanning was a result of British sunshine. When you do a 6-8 hour swim, you are exposing your back and arms to the full force of the sun and the reflected sunlight. Since you breathe to the right, take 3 strokes and then breathe to the left, take 3 strokes and then breathe to the right ad infinitum, your face is spending a lot of time exposed to the sun. The proof is in the attractive panda mark made by the goggles and the very white skin below my swimming costume (which few get to see!!).

17. What about “larding up” – do you do that before each swim?

Yes the Vaseline petroleum jelly is very important to stop friction burns. So far it has been very effective below the arms and between the legs but I have wonderful scars on my neck and chest – where little bristles in my beard rubbed my skin raw over my first 6-hour swim.

And no, the Vaseline really doesn’t help insulate you. The only protection from the cold is extensive training in cold water!

18. What about jellyfish – have you seen any of them?

Unfortunately I had “close encounters of the jelly kind” on every swim until August when they disappeared from the harbour. These usually occurred when I took a stroke and it felt like 3-4 electrified barbed wires being dragged across my leading arm- yup, jellyfish tentacles.

The arm typically stings like anything for about 5 minutes and then the skin goes numb. Impressive scars come up which set off my friction burns nicely. During the year I managed a collection on both left & right fore & upper arms!

19. What did you think about whilst pounding up and down Dover Harbour?

Dory from "Finding Nemo" and her immortal motto: "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming".

But mainly a full cooked breakfast at Chaplins… or the next shore feed. The latter comes after around 2 hours and then every 1-2 hours after that. It involves a warm, high carbohydrate drink which is meant to contain the equivalent of 3 baked potatoes in one cup. A little piece of Kit Kat or a Chocolate Mini Roll is an extra-special occasional treat!

I also think about the epitaph on Captain Matthew Webb’s grave: “Nothing great is easy” and my personal motto: “You are built for comfort not for speed” or as I have adapted it “Built for comfort not for Speed-o”

20. Do you recommend doing the swim for charity?

Yes. But don't accept any pledges of the popular style - "10p per mile with £100 for the last 7 steps up the French beach"!

Doing the swim for charity wasn’t an easy decision for me. I remember what it felt like to stand on the start line of the London Marathon and to think “I really don’t want to do this…but I have to otherwise my charity will lose out”. In the channel, the stakes are much higher and I wasn't sure I want any additional pressures!

However the crossing was a huge personal investment both in time and out-of-pocket expenses - most notably to hire the pilot & boat, for registration fees, for petrol to & from Dover each Saturday & each Sunday. Not to mention not working for a while!

So it seems a waste for that investment not to benefit some worthy causes… and yes, you can still contribute by clicking here!!

21. How do I find out more about this great sport of Channel Swimming?

Try the Channel Swimming Association and Channel Swimming & Pilot Federation web-sites.

Or if you liked Joe Simmonds story in “Touching the Void”, then I highly recommend 2 books in a similar vein that focus on or touch on channel swimming:

“The Crossing: The Glorious Tragedy of the First Man to Swim the English Channel” by Kathy Watson describes the first ever crossing of the channel by Captain Matthew Webb. It is a remarkable and ultimately tragic story about the “David Beckham” of the 1870s. It also goes a long way either to convince you that remarkable things can be accomplished by determined amateurs or that, as Noel Coward put it, only “mad dogs and English men”…

“Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer” by Lynne Cox describes one woman passion to challenge the perceptions of the limits to the human body. Whilst Lynne cannot be described as remotely “self deprecating”, her accomplishments more than amply justify her pride. Having swum in 51°F water, it is way beyond my understanding why anyone would attempt to swim the Baring Straits between the US and Russia when the water temperature is 43°F (6°C) or to swim to Antarctica at 32°F (0°C). After all, the latter is the freezing point of water!!

 

And finally 20 things that you might not know about Channel Swimming (source: The CS&PF Annual Dinner).

1. The first attempt was made by JB Johnson in 1872, which he abandoned after 63 minutes.
   
   
2. The first man to swim the channel was Capt. Matthew Webb, which took 21 hours 45 minutes on August 24, 1875.
   
   
3. From 1906 to 1913, Jabez Wolffe made 22 unsuccessful attempts, although he failed by less than a mile on three occasions and less than a hundred yards in 1911.
   
   
4. The slowest crossing was made in 1923 by American Henry Sullivan in 26 hours 50 minutes.
   
   
5. The first woman to swim the Channel was also American, Gertrude Ederle in 1926.
   
   
6. In 1927, the year the Channel Swimming Association was formed to oversee and authenticate attempts, E H Temme became the first man to swim in both directions. He later became the first to repeat that feat.
   
   
7. In 1951, the first crossing by a grandmother was achieved by 50 year old Betty Cohn.
   
   
8. A year later, the shortest ever attempt was by Bruno Tajana, from Switzerland, who gave up after just 100 yards.
   
   
9. 1953 was the year of the great "no-race". Sponsored by Butlins, eight entered, two did not start and the other six failed to finish.
   
   
10. In 1954, the first person to die attempting to swim the channel was Ted May, who drowned during an unsupervised crossing.
    
    
11. Seven years later, Argentina's Antonio Abertondo became the first man to swim both ways non-stop in 43 hours 5 minutes.
    
    
12. 1981 saw the first non-stop three way crossing by another American, Jon Erkson.
    
    
13. The oldest male swimmer to cross was Australian Clifford Batt, aged 67 in 1987 when timing 18 hours 37 minutes.
    
    
14. A year later, Eltham Swimming Club's Thomas Gregory, aged 11 years 11 months, became the youngest when clocking 6 minutes short of 12 hours. Since 1994, new rules have prevented solo attempts by anyone under the age of 16.
    
    
15. In 1990, Poland's Lucy Krajewska made the first successful crossing by a legless person.
    
    
16. Four years later, American Chad Hundeby recorded the fastest-ever time - 7 hours 17 minutes.
    
    
17. In 1999, American Carol Sing became the oldest woman to cross the Channel when at the age of 57 she clocked 12 hours 32 minutes.
    
    
18. Alison Streeter MBE holds the record for the most individual crossings - 43 - which includes one 3-way and three 2-way swims, while Mike Read has done it 33 times and Kevin Murphy has done it 32 times but plans another crossing soon!
    
    
19. Total number of ratified swims to 2004: 948 successful crossings by 675 people (456 by men and 214 by women). There have been 25 2-way crossings (9 by men and 7 by women). There have been 3 3-way crossings (2 by men and 1 by a woman).
    
    
20. "Nothing great is easy" - Inscription on the monument to Matthew Webb.