Channel swim challenge for university student
15 April 2008
Avoiding large ships and braving freezing water temperatures will be just some of the challenges Sophie Wright will face when she takes the plunge and swims the English Channel.
Sophie is gearing up for the 21.6-mile challenge at the end of July and aims to raise over £5,000 for The Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign in memory of her beloved uncle James Palmer.
She said: “It is in his memory that I am doing this swim. His strength of spirit, determination, kindness and character remain my biggest inspiration in everything that challenges me throughout life.”
The 20-year-old Southampton University student is a keen swimmer but this will be her biggest feat yet. Swimming the English Channel is often deemed the Everest of swimming challenges.
The water will be no warmer than 16 degrees and she will be wearing nothing but a swimming costume, hat and goggles.
The swim will take Sophie roughly between 14 and 16 hours to complete and during that time she will have no physical contact with the safety boat escorting her across the channel, which is also Europe’s busiest shipping lane.
Sophie will only stop her swim briefly to eat every couple of hours and replenish the 15,000 calories she will burn during the challenge.
During the winter months she has been training hard and she is now doing around 10 to 12 hours of swimming in the pool a week as well as one swim in the River Itchen.
And after being mistaken for a seal in the water, Sophie is also going to invest in some bring pink swim gear.
Sophie has now ditched her wetsuit for a regular swimsuit as the strict rules stipulate, and has been working on acclimatising to the cold water, which is currently about seven degrees, with Keith MacFadyen. He will be driving her support boat courtesy of the University of Southampton. This is invaluable to her training.