CONTINUED REFINEMENTS

This weekend marked the first weekend this season where we have able to run training both days. It’s wonderful that we have been able to make this happen. We have been starting early so that we are able to leave the beach before it gets really busy in the afternoon. Both days this weekend it started getting busy just after lunch, as previously, BUT, it was only busy for an hour or two.

Busy really only applies to the beach. Whilst feeding is possible in the water, we can minimise the risk to swimmers to only before and after training. As such, I’m keen to move training to a more sociable starting time, so we will revert to previous years’ start time of 9am

AND

I’m prepared to offer 7 hour sessions from next Saturday.

I will email those who have already booked the 8am start time to see if there are any issues in moving and I will accommodate those who can’t move to a later start time, until we have fully transitioned.

DOVER SWIMS

Saturday:

Swimmers: 8
Water temperature: 18.1C
Air temperature: 22.5C
Conditions: Light cloud & sunny with a gentle breeze to start, increasing steadily until F4-5 SW leaving the ferry wall end very lumpy

Sunday:
Swimmers: 16 (split over 3 session times)
Water temperature: 18.5C
Air temperature: 21.5C
Conditions: Sunny. Calm to start, building to a F4-5 westerly breeze leading to a confused sea state.

We had:

19 swimmers joining the longer swims. Of those:
- 5 swam both days
- 3 completed back to back 6 hour swims with eight 6 hour swims in total, one of which was completed by our very own Mandi - it’s great to see you back and at it again 😊
We saw new, 2020 regulars and returning swimmers
We saw Hayley stretch a 4 hour swim into a 5 hour swim - seems she can resist anything except a challenge - particularly impressive when she’s not training for anything.
We saw Sue double her last swim time, which made for lovely smiles.

Nice weather enabled some socially distance banter on the beach afterwards, which included some drive by fruiting (you’ll need to ask!!).

As for the bucket challenge, I’m glad you’re all good at swimming - throwing shoes is not yet a core strength. We’re not at the end of the season yet though!

CHANNEL SWIMMER ON THE BEACH

Melanie Holland, channel swim #2, 30th July, 11 hrs 43 mins

Wasn’t it wonderful to have such an amazing tracking day on Thursday?! Whilst those heading out overnight didn’t get to France on this occasion, there was 100% success rate for the fast swimmers who went during the day. It was a fantastic tracking day. Well done to all the swimmers, pilots and crew. Particularly well done to Phill Crutcher (who used the remote training support, the ramp up camp and Dover Dips) and to DCT regular, Melanie Holland.

Well done to DCT class of 2019 swimmer, Steve Henigan, who successfully swam from Jersey to France on the same day, finishing in 8 hours 1 minute.

Melanie came back to the beach to do her lap of honour & a few handstands too!

FEEDING

The questions on feeding continue. It’s worth having a read of the blog post by Nick Murch below, it may well answer some of your questions.

Blog Post

PHOTOS

A few photos from this weekend.

BOOKING SYSTEM

This year I have added a booking system to help you to take control of how you interact with us. You can book your weekend swims in advance (a necessity in this Covid-19 world), you can join a community call, book a one to one or sign-up for ur remote training support subscription packages.

There are some great bonuses from doing this. You can get a calendar event to remind you what you booked. You can reschedule or edit your sessions. We know who to expect which makes signing in pretty seamless. We can ensure we keep numbers down to a safe level.

If you want to use our booking system, it can be found below.

I’m also going to add in the volunteer rota soon, so if you would like to help out there will be a way to sign-up soon. NB all PPE required is provided.

DCT Week 14 - A full weekend