Swim the Channel
My next door neighbors, and five others, all neighbors but one, decided it was a good idea to, well, what else, swim the English Channel.
Bucket list? Mid-life whatever? An excuse for the wives to shop in Paris?
All that shall remain a mystery. The fact of the matter is, six guys trained for months, and their shot came last night.
The crossing has been planned for a long time, and requires joining the Channel Swim Association, finding domicile in Dover, and arranging for a boat. How hard could all that be? Well, let's start with the CSA. The rules are, no wetsuits.
Yup. So notice I'm not on the trip. Sixty-seven degrees at the warmest. Kuh-razy, am I right?
Well, and then you have to have swim chops, and again, I'm not on the trip.
I did get invited to be the vid guy, but our budget isn't structured in that way. As in, Linda in Paris? Once again, kuh-razy, am I right?
Back to the swim. They selected an award-winning captain on the Viking Princess. They planned a week in a 5-bedroom home. The weather the week before had been perfect. Enough foreshadowing???
Yep. It turned crappy. They finally had a window last night. Alas, they were the fourth boat out, first one left at 12:30 pm Dover time, they left at 1:30; that was the key.
Partway across, the tide turned. Literally. I know that's a literary phrase, perhaps a sports phrase. But that's exactly what happened. And not unexpectedly. But the guys had to stay on a 1.5 to 2 mph pace to make it work, and that didn't happen.
I'm sure they are disappointed, but there's already talk of next year.
Meanwhile I've been playing with the technology and using Windyty.com to analyze the weather, Plus, Marinetraffic.com is outstanding for tracking vessels. Their app is better than their web site, at least by way of "recording" voyages.
So, here are some visuals. My apology for the poor clarity on the vids. I keep talking about higher resolution and Linda keeps talking about shoes.
Husbands, you know the issue.
First, Dover Harbor:
Next, the first leg of the voyage. Have to go over to the beach and touch sand, it appears. Rules rule!!
Next, a video of the Viking Princess back in port following the turnaround:
Same basic content as above, but using satellite rather than mapping:
I chanced upon them on this track at 1:42 EDT, and the turn looked odd to me. As it was, that was the turnaround point. I didn't know until morning. Hey, a Yank has to sleep, right?
This is the Viking Princess web site (linked above) showing the last 16 hours of travel for the boat:
And last but not least, I shot a video of my phone because it was the only way to memorialize the event. Here's a link to it on my Google drive:
Bucket list? Mid-life whatever? An excuse for the wives to shop in Paris?
All that shall remain a mystery. The fact of the matter is, six guys trained for months, and their shot came last night.
The crossing has been planned for a long time, and requires joining the Channel Swim Association, finding domicile in Dover, and arranging for a boat. How hard could all that be? Well, let's start with the CSA. The rules are, no wetsuits.
Yup. So notice I'm not on the trip. Sixty-seven degrees at the warmest. Kuh-razy, am I right?
Well, and then you have to have swim chops, and again, I'm not on the trip.
I did get invited to be the vid guy, but our budget isn't structured in that way. As in, Linda in Paris? Once again, kuh-razy, am I right?
Back to the swim. They selected an award-winning captain on the Viking Princess. They planned a week in a 5-bedroom home. The weather the week before had been perfect. Enough foreshadowing???
Yep. It turned crappy. They finally had a window last night. Alas, they were the fourth boat out, first one left at 12:30 pm Dover time, they left at 1:30; that was the key.
Partway across, the tide turned. Literally. I know that's a literary phrase, perhaps a sports phrase. But that's exactly what happened. And not unexpectedly. But the guys had to stay on a 1.5 to 2 mph pace to make it work, and that didn't happen.
I'm sure they are disappointed, but there's already talk of next year.
Meanwhile I've been playing with the technology and using Windyty.com to analyze the weather, Plus, Marinetraffic.com is outstanding for tracking vessels. Their app is better than their web site, at least by way of "recording" voyages.
So, here are some visuals. My apology for the poor clarity on the vids. I keep talking about higher resolution and Linda keeps talking about shoes.
Husbands, you know the issue.
First, Dover Harbor:
Next, the first leg of the voyage. Have to go over to the beach and touch sand, it appears. Rules rule!!
Next, a video of the Viking Princess back in port following the turnaround:
Same basic content as above, but using satellite rather than mapping:
I chanced upon them on this track at 1:42 EDT, and the turn looked odd to me. As it was, that was the turnaround point. I didn't know until morning. Hey, a Yank has to sleep, right?
This is the Viking Princess web site (linked above) showing the last 16 hours of travel for the boat:
And last but not least, I shot a video of my phone because it was the only way to memorialize the event. Here's a link to it on my Google drive:
Congratulations to all the swimmers, and their supporters, for an outstanding season of training and prep!!!!
Comments