“I love the logistics and planning of a swim,” describes Wayne Soutter at the 2013 Global Open Water Swimming Conference in Cork, Ireland.

A swim in 1928 and 1929 was attempted 3 times by Mercedes Gleitze that attracted his attention between Scotland and Ireland.

“What I needed was a boat and a captain,” explains Soutter. He finally got in touch with Sean McCarry. “Through Sean, I got in touch with a doctor and crew. Joe Breen is in charge of the area where I would swim, and no one knew more. I had to learn about tides, logistics, coast line, including potential start and end points. In December, I did a reconnaissance mission in December.”

Then his real hard work began on the tidal research and predictions.

After that research was completed, then he planned a trial swim that went well. As did his unprecedented 17 km course that was completed from the Mull of Kintyre on west coast of Scotland to the north Antrim coast in northern Ireland in 12 hours 11 minutes.

Copyright © 2013 by Open Water Swimming