Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.
Three’s a charm in Windermere.
The historic Windermere Cross Lake Swim was first organised in the 1920s by the Windermere Swimming Club. In 1974, it was taken over by Troutbeck Swimming Club. Then in 2014, Troutbeck Swimming Club handed the event over to Chillswim to organise. “Chillswim are proud custodians of this swimming race,” said founder Colin Hill.
With 250 entries in this past weekend’s event, Chillswim revamped the shore-to-shore swim by hiring Windermere Lake Cruises to take the swimmers across by ferry to the lovely Wray Castle Boat House. “It was a one-way ticket only,” said Hill with a twinkle in his eye.
Starting from the water’s edge, the 250 participants swam 1.2 km back to the finish. “For many, this was their first taste of completing a linear swim across a lake, although there were plenty of experienced long distance swimmers here just to take part in a classic event. The weather was extremely windy the day before, but on the morning of the event it was perfectly still with perfect conditions and average water temp at 16.8ºC. With three separate starts taking off early, the swimmers were across Windermere before there was a lot of boat traffic and commercial ferries on the water.
In the first start we had 14-year-old Tom Robinson who I train with at Ullverston. He put in the fastest time of the day with 15 minutes 35 seconds and Nicola Nunns finished in 17:35 to take first overall female. The event was wetsuit optional with separate prizes for wetsuit and non-wetsuit, including some old trophies passed on by Troutbeck Swimming club to the fastest non-wetsuit swimmers.
Top 20 Results (complete results here):
1. Tom Robinson 15:35.45
2. Gary Buxton 16:33.80
3. David Faulkner 17:03.10
4. Nicola Nunns 17:25.55 [first female]
5. Jack Duff 17:26.75
6. Sharon Binfield-Hill 18:10.20 [second female]
7. Martin Edwards 18:18.10
8. Arjun Avalakki 18:46.45
9. Mark Yare 18:46.80
10. Sandy Blacklock 18:48.75
11. Helen Richardson 18:53.45 [third female]
12. Andrew Baldasera 19:05.25
13. Dona Simpson 19:10.55 [fourth female]
14. Roddy Gladstone 19:15.70
15. Rick Binfield-Hill 19:16.50
16. Matthew Brown 19:23.30
17. Callum Seton 19:27.25
18. Joe Bennett 19:27.30
19. Molly Hale 19:30.90 [fifth female]
20. Sally Chapman 19:46.00 [sixth female]
Copyright © 2014 by World Open Water Swimming Association