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Look To Left, Look To Right, Swim Down The Middle – The Wonder of Willoughby

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Willoughby Swim Enters its 15th Year in 2024

Phil White established a lake swim in Vermont that, in hindsight, should have been held for decades, swum for generations.

But it took visionary White and his colleagues at the Northeast Kingdom Open Water Swimming Association to establish the Willoughby Swim, a 7.64 km (4.75-mile) point-to-point swim in a majestic lake in some of the most pristine water in North America, in 2008.

The 15th edition of the Willoughby Swim is scheduled for August 10th 2024. The field is limited to 50 swimmers.

And what a treat the entrants are in for.

White explains, “Willoughby is a glacially carved, spring-fed lake with steep cliffs of verdant green on the east and west. Swimmers cruise over 122 meters of clean water through the towering walls on either side.  Winds get funneled through the gap that creates both a push and a current to benefit the swimmer’s progress.  It is miles of friendly wilderness from the sandy beach at the start on the north to the finish on the sandy beach to the south.  It sits atop the Memphremagog Watershed in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.”

There is a catch – that White purposefully creates to make the swim even more inviting. “Every year in August, we gather at North Beach, figure out which way the wind is blowing, and then start from either the north or south to swim with the wind through The Gap.”

Willoughby Swim History

The origins of the mid-summer Willoughby Swim, conversely, trace back to a blistering cold weekend in January, 2010.  White remembers, “It was -30°F (-34°C) with steady 20 mph winds from the Northwest.  We had held our first Kingdom Swim in 2009 with a surprising number of 104 swimmers.  Following the swim, I told this first wave of swimmers, if they liked swimming Lake Memphremagog, they would love swimming Willoughby.  On that totally cold Saturday morning, I got a message from a swimmer saying that he’d like to swim Willoughby and asked whether I would provide support.  I replied, ‘Absolutely. Would you like some company?’  After he said, ‘Yes’, I posted to the 2009 Kingdom Swimmers, ‘Anybody want to swim Willoughby?’ By the end of that brutally cold winter day, 34 swimmers had replied in the affirmative.

As I wa­­­­s loading more wood into the stove, I picked a date in August for our first Willoughby Swim in 2010 and thought it might be time to organize a Northeast Kingdom Open Water Swimming Association.  The next morning, I put out the call. Over another wicked cold day, with four exchanges of emails, NEKOWSA was organized.  Our governing principles were simple, ‘No dues. No duties. Just privileges.’  With our Kingdom Swim battle cry, ‘NO LANES – NO LINES – NO LIMITS,’ we were launched.

I put out the announcement and the Daily News of Open Water Swimming picked up on the story.  I told Steven Munatones, ‘The next thing we need to do is find a clubhouse where we can sit around late into the night, burn some shit, and talk about serious things.’ He covered the announcement with the date of the Willoughby Swim, the creation of NEKOWSA , and my dream of a clubhouse.

The word spread far and wide and the next summer, 200 open water swimmers stormed Kingdom Swim and 14 swam Willoughby. The next year 17 swimmers signed on and the Willoughby numbers have grown ever since, reaching 100 in 2019 when we held a USMS National Championship 5-mile race. 

The initial record was set by 16-year-old Reade Otto-Moudry of Ithaca, New York in 1 hours 53.09 minutes in 2011.  The record was later dropped by Eric Nilsson of Weston, Massachusetts to 1 hour 36.21 minutes – with the wind. That same year, Mackenzie Leake of Stanford, California set the woman’s record in 1 hour 45.57 minutes – with the wind.  In 2023, we were forced to move Kingdom Swim to Lake Willoughby because of the flood damage to Lake Memphremagog.  As a result. we held the swim against the wind.  In that counter-wind race, former Olympian Alex Meyer of Salem, Massachusetts, set the current-negative record swimming against the wind, with his winning time of 2 hours 1.08 minutes.

Podcaster – blogger – coach – marathon swimmer Shannon House Kegan from Oregaon became the first person to double-cross Lake Willoughby.  She cleared the water at North Beach, had a burger at our BBQ picnic and headed back into the water.  When I saw what she was doing, I drove to South Beach with my stopwatch to give her her time and a woodal.  Since then, we have added a 15.3 km Willoughby Double-Cross as an option. 

During the past 15 years, Charlotte Brynn [shown below] has swum the length of Lake Willoughby a total of 35 times, including 13 single crossings, 8 double crossings, and 2 triple crossings, earning her the title Queen of Willoughby.  In 2021, 52-year-old scientist Greg O’Connor of Natick, Massachusetts became the first person to complete a quadruple crossing of the lake, becoming the King of Willoughby.

Brynn’s first 23 km three-way crossing was completed in 7 hours 14.06 minutes in 2018. Her second three-way crossing was completed in 7 hours 36.52 minutes in 2023 at the age of 57. O’Connor completed his four-way crossing of Lake Willoughby in 11 hours 5 minutes with a 2 hour 23 minute first leg, a 2 hour 37 minute second leg, a 2 hour 42 minute third leg, and a 3 hour 23 minute fourth leg.

Since 2013, the Willoughby Swim has been held as part of NEK Swim Week where swimmers have the option of swimming 8 lakes over the course of 9 days for a total of 46 to 60 miles including five marathon swims. We start each morning at 9 am and finish each swim with sandwiches, local, fresh picked steamed corn, watermelon, and ice cream.  Most of these swims are laid back and run without hoopla.  Willoughby, however, is a competitive 5-and 10-mile race, with Brault’s Beef Jerky and Couture’s Maple Syrup as prizes for the top three finishers, male and female.

On August 10th 2024, we’re back to celebrate our 15th year of this swim. With a growing fleet of motorboats and a posse of pilots to support our swimmers, we have been able to lift our limits on Willoughby and the other swims during NEK Swim Week.

­­Kingdom Games and the Northeast Kingdom Open Water Swimming Association now host over 30 days of swimming in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and the Eastern Townships of Quebec, including Kingdom Swim (our boisterous Flagship Swim), In Search of Memphre (our 25-mile cross-border swim), NEK Swim Week (8 lakes over the course of 9 days), Memphremagog Winter Swimming Festival (three days of swimming in the only two-lane, 25-meter pool cut in the ice in all of the Americas), and the Saturday Clubhous Swim Series (using the islands of Derby Bay to set our distances of 2, 3.5, 6.5, and 12 miles). 

Step by step, over the past 15 years, we have evolved into an unlikely mecca of open water swimming.  Thousands of swimmers and yackers have made the pilgrimage to Vermont from over 45 states, 4 Canadian provinces, and over 15 nations from Australia to India, Argentina to the UK. We are now well recognized as one of the world’s most prolific and beloved series of swimming events, per the description by Marathon Swimmers Federation.

For more information, visit kingdomgames.co.

For a full schedule of events in 2024, visit 2024 schedule of events.

© 2024 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

to educate, enthuse, and entertain all those who venture beyond the shoreline

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