Stephen Early’s Channel Swim

After winning the Pulse Aquathon Series, Greystones Aquathon and finishing on the podium of several early season races, Stephen Early took the rest of the season to concentrate on the channel swim he completed last week.  Here’s Stephen’s channel swim story.

“On Sunday morning, 29th August, we had finally done it – what Richard Branson had tried to Kitesurf the week before and failed, we had managed to swim…the English Channel. My family and I (two sisters; Katie and Sarah, brother; Ken and Dad Ciaran) had originally set out on Wednesday 18th August to attempt a 5-person Channel relay crossing on Friday or Saturday, 20th/21st August. Inevitably, the weather refused to cooperate and our swim was delayed, initially till Monday, then the following Wednesday, and finally Friday. When Friday came around and it looked like a force 6 wind would ruin our last opportunity to get going, we were devastated. Only a desperate phone call to our pilot Andy King left us with any hope of doing the swim.

Sarah swimming in the dark (no swim buoys to guide the way!!!)

As we were swimming the Channel in aid of St. James Hospital (http://www.mycharity.ie/event/sarah_earlys_event/), we were becoming quite anxious about accepting thousands of Euro in generous donations and not even getting a chance to attempt the crossing. According to Andy, there was a window of opportunity to start at 2.30am on Sunday morning, as the weather was due to calm significantly and the tides would be favourable at that time. This was fantastic news and, although this meant swimming in the dark for 3.5-4 hours, we jumped at the chance.

In a relay Channel crossing, each swimmer is in the water for 1 hour at a time, after which they are tagged by the next swimmer who hops into the water and begins where the previous person left off. The sequence must be repeated until land is reached or the swim is considered ´spoiled´. The swimmer in the water is not allowed to touch the boat at any time during their hour, or receive any kind of assistance, aside from nutritional support (basically a water bottle thrown into the sea!). Furthermore, as we were doing our crossing with the Channel Swimming Association, we were only permitted to wear standard Speedos – no Sailfish G-Range for me this time!

Knowing all this in advance, we had begun training in February with Templeogue Swimming Club – our old swimming club. Head coach Brian Sweeney was fantastic in allowing us to swim with the squad in the mornings and put a fantastic training structure in place that, come August, would see our aerobic swimming capacity improve considerably. The majority of our training was on a 90 second per 100m base, with some intervals reduced to 85 seconds to make things interesting. Initially, we were maintaining these intervals for 2,500m or so and then running out of steam. However, as we began to progress, by mid-June, we were comfortably holding a 90 second base for 5-6k per session. From then on, as we were not looking to break any Channel crossing records, it was about acclimatization to the cold water and maintaining our aerobic base – the pool was 25-26 degrees and the channel would be no warmer than 16-17 degrees, which I suppose is warm by Irish standards.

Katie races the ferry

Our sea swimming began back in late April, with brief 5 minute forays into the sea at Brittas Bay and Seapoint. We gradually increased this to a full hour in the water by early July and. by the time August came around, we were swimming in Seapoint as often as possible. This acclimatization was vital to our preparations, as not only were we adapting to the colder conditions in the Irish sea (relative to the Channel, the Irish sea is approx 1.5 degrees colder), but we were swimming in open water. As all triathletes know, open water swimming and pool swimming are completely different and sea swims in particular should be treated with great respect.

Sarah and myself had targeted two big open water swims during the Summer that would give us an indication of how much work was required before September. The first was the Frances Thornton Memorial Galway Bay swim, which is organized every year by Kevin Thornton and Ronan Collins in aid of Cancer Care West. It´s a 13km sea swim across Galway Bay from Auginish in Co. Clare to Blackrock in Salthill, Galway. We completed this as a team of two in 3 hours and 17 minutes – ably assisted by our wetsuits of course…we hadn´t adapted to the cold water sufficiently at that stage to attempt it without them. It was a fantastic event and although we were happy to finish in a decent time, the times set by Ronan Collins, Susanna Murphy and Sorcha Barry (just over 3 hours) showed us just how much more training would be required before we set off for Dover.

The second swim was the ‘Tommy Dorgan’ 5km swim from Windsurfers pier to Half Moon, South Wall. This is one tough swim and highly recommended for anyone looking to test out their open water ability – bring a support kayak though because it can get very lonely out there in the middle of Dublin bay with just the jellyfish for company – especially when you swim towards the Poolbeg lighthouse and not the Half Moon swimming clubhouse. Getting through this in a fairly solid time, without wetsuits gave us a good indication that we were in decent shape to complete our crossing without any significant issues.

Anyhow, back in Dover and having received confirmation that our swim was to go ahead at 2.30am, we arrived at the dock at 1.00 am or so in order to load all our gear onto the pilot boat. The wind chill meant that the air temperature was only 12 degrees. Not cool! This meant that, at 17 degrees, the water temperature was a full 5 degrees warmer – upon hearing this news; I was actually looking forward to jumping in.

Stephen with France in sight.

We also learned that in an attempt to make the most of the strong tidal flows, 4 other relay teams had started at 12am. Nevertheless, we trusted our pilot’s judgment and prepared for our start at 2.30 am, as agreed. So, at 2.30am, upon reaching Samphire Hoe — the traditional starting point for all England/France Channel crossings, I hopped into the sea to swim for shore. I swam in about 150m, stood on the beach, waited for the sound from the boat and ran back, Baywatch style, into the sea to begin the crossing.

The first 15 minutes were easy and I felt like I was swimming well. My plan was to try and hold just below threshold pace for the first 30 minutes and then pick it up from there, depending on how I felt. However, as I swam further from the coast, the choppier seas started to affect my pace more and more. The fact that I was also swimming in the dark made it quite difficult to spot approaching waves when breathing and spotting, so I must’ve swallowed about 3 gallons of sea water in the first 20 minutes (maybe a slight exaggeration). By 30 minutes I had settled down and started to feel good again. The chop wasn’t affecting me anymore and I just had to adapt my stroke slightly to prevent my recovery arm from being swallowed by every incoming wave. With 15 minutes to go in my first hour in the water, I tried to pick up the pace as much as possible so that I’d have nothing left getting back into the boat. That’s the beauty of a relay swim – you can give it everything when it’s your turn because you have plenty of time to refuel and rest on the boat while others are in the water.

Sarah was in next and from the word go, she was setting an extremely fast pace. According to Andy, we had gone almost 3 miles in the first hour – tide assisted of course!! By the end of Sarah’s swim, we had entered the South Shipping lane and from this point on, the sea became significantly choppier. Following Sarah was Ken, followed by Katie and then Ciaran. Ken put in an extremely solid swim in the worsening conditions and his hat was even ripped from his head at one point, which gives you an idea of how rough it was. By this stage, the 4 other teams who had started at midnight could be seen at varying distances just ahead of us.

As the sun came up, Katie jumped in and continued where Ken left off. She brought us to just before the half-way point and right behind one of the relay teams. It was over to my Dad to take us past the half-way point in the separation zone (half-way in the separation zone represents the half-way point in the swim) and by this stage; the poor weather had forced three of the relay teams to abandon their crossings. We were all still feeling strong and in a strange way, seeing 3 boats going the wrong way bolstered our confidence and made us even more determined to reach France.

When the time came for me to jump back in, I was genuinely looking to forward swimming again. Spending 4 hours on a rolling boat on choppy seas is not conducive to good times and my 4th hour out of the water was definitely the hardest. However, I tried to put that aside because aa far as I could see, we were on for a sub 10hr swim, which meant that this would be my last chance in the water. I hopped in and picked up the intensity immediately. My heart rate was through the roof for the first 10 minutes but I gradually eased into a comfortable rhythm and by 20 minutes into my swim I was feeling great again. Luckily, I managed to maintain my tempo and after what seemed like no time at all, I was done again. Hopping back onto the boat and after a quick calculation saw that I had done 3.5 miles, which I was quite happy with – again obviously, I was helped significantly by the tides! Sarah next, and by the time she was through, we were definitely looking at a sub 10hr crossing. She was swimming unbelievably well, stopping for about 2 seconds after 30 minutes to ask how long she´d been in. My aspirations for a sub 10 hr crossing were short lived however, as I hadn’t factored in just how treacherous the tides can be the French side.

The strange thing about the Channel tides is that they run parallel to both the English and French coasts, so as much as you try to swim in a straight line, 4 knots of tide will always bring you in a diagonal direction, even if you’re Grant Hackett. By the time Ken was through his second swim, the coast was agonizingly close. The tide was wreaking havoc however and our landing point was moving further down the coast with every passing minute. He liked to swim to the left of the boat and looking out from the port side, we could see that we were right beside the final relay team who had started out ahead of us. By the time he had finished we had pulled ahead of them which was another huge boost to our confidence.

Katie dove in and powered her way toward the lighthouse at Cap-Gris-Nez – our planned landing point. Cramp set in 15 minutes into her swim but she managed to maintain a steady pace and finish out her hour without stopping once – a fantastic effort. It seemed like it would be left to our Dad to finish it off and take the honor of landing in France. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be as the tide changed to run the other direction, pushing him further along the coast in the wrong direction. The sub 10hr time was slipping away from us and after his hour’s effort; we were only 7/800 metres from shore.

So, after 10 hours at sea I was back in the water after all and left with the glory of landing on French soil. Helped significantly by the waves approaching the French coast, I swam/bodysurfed onto dry land. It was a fantastic feeling – 8 months of tough training and early mornings had paid off and more importantly, we had raised a significant amount of money for St. James’s Hospital by actually completing the crossing. Having waited for the green light for 10 days and from being in a position where it looked like we may not even get the chance to swim, the relief on all our faces when I got back onto the boat was noticeable.

Finished and relieved at the French shoreline

On the way back, we again passed the remaining relay team who had set off two and a half hours before us. I’m hoping they made it safely across as they were only 1km out and seemed to have passed the worst part of the tide.

Our observer Steve Franks, informed us that our time was 10hrs 9mins – definitely not too shabby and as far as I can tell the fastest (and only!) 5 person family relay crossing of the English Channel. It turns out that this summer has been the worst for Channel crossings in 40 years and the night we swam was the first successful crossing for 2 weeks.

We would like to thank everyone who supported us in our crossing – all the generous donations and messages of support from everyone kept us motivated throughout our training and on the boat during those long waits between swims. Thanks to all the swimmers at Team TSC who are an incredible group of talented, hard-working athletes and who generously gave us a lane so that we could train with them in the morning. Thanks to Ronan Collins and Kevin and Brian Thornton and all the organizing and safety team of the Frances Thornton Memorial Galway Bay swim, for organizing a fantastic annual event (and after party of course). Thanks to State Street Ireland Charitable trust and Linda Power for the extremely generous donation. Also, to Newstalk, for championing our efforts to the nation. Finally, huge thanks to Brian Sweeney and Eoin Dillon, who improved our swimming immeasurably, and put a fantastic training structure in place right from the start to help us achieve our goal.

The Early Family”

(Ciaran, Anne, Ken, Sarah, Stephen and Katie)

http://www.mycharity.ie/event/sarah_earlys_event/