AFTER 14 hours and 19 minutes of swimming through the busiest shipping lanes in the world, Conor Hartnett on Tuesday July 28, 2009, became the first Limerick man to successfully complete the Mount Everest of swimming and swim the English Channel across 21 miles of open sea. Conor’s mammoth achievement comes as he also raises vital charity funds for The Smile Train
in tackling and solving one single problem, cleft lip and palate in children.
At 04.21am on Tuesday morning this week, Conor, dubbed “the tanker” for the day, began his challenge from Dover on the English coast in “lumpy seas” and aimed to join the 801 other ratified swimmers and the elite group that have completed the amazing feat of swimming from England to France and enter the history books as the first Limerick man to swim the channel.
As Conor emerged on to the rocky shore on the French coast, the elation and sense of achievement was clear and the dream was fulfilled as he claimed a piece of history.
Having to dig deep as the French coast teased like a mademoiselle from her boudoir, the Limerick man had to battle six foot swells and whitecaps as the 14 degC salt seas broke over his head.
Updates on the swimmer’s progress came from the support boat GPS tracker, viewed online by family and friends in both Ireland and the USA and Conor’s brother Declan who provided the informative yet often humorous text messages to add to the excitement.
“Do they know that there is a torpedo in the water”, came almost as a warning to the other channel inhabitants in a text message at 07.35 am as Conor entered his third hour in the water.
“At three hours in he is looking strong and the sea state has eased and the white horses on the waves were lessening so conditions are improving,” according to Declan who was on board the support boat ‘Sea Satin’.
But by lunchtime and as Conor moved into the final stages of the challenge, Declan noted the role of the tides during the challenge with the update; “Cap Gris is in clear view now, but he’ll have to swim past it and come back on the ebb tide and hopefully that will sweep us on to it. ‘Consie’ is in unchartered territory now. He is strong again after a shaky ninth hour. This is not for the faint hearted, but nobody could accuse Con of having a faint heart.”
The situation was taking its toll on both swimmer and support crew as the challenge moved into the final hours with Conor having to battle with the sight of Cap Gris yet it still remaining several hours away and out of his grasp. “Con is moving well but she [Cap Gris on the French coast] still remains out of reach. He’s getting impatient now but c’est la vie”.
But with just minutes to go and as Conor neared the shoreline the sea state calmed and the wind died to allow the Limerick swimmer complete his mammoth adventure and emulate the feat of captain Matthew Webb who first swam the channel in 1875.
On the return journey from the French coast and having swam over 30 miles in open water, Conor’s wit and humour was alive and well as the Titanic swimmer noted exhaustion but elation; “I’m bollixed, and you can print that”.
The 42 year old, hailing from the city’s North Circular Road, left these shores in the early 90’s in pursuit of his fortune but never lost his roots to home as the popular former St Michael’s rower regularly returned to his native city.
Over the last 12 months, Conor’s swimming and training regime took him through over 15 hours of fitness work a week that included over 50km of swimming and conditioning.
Accompanied by a referee from the Channel Swim association, Conor had his wife Andrea, brother Declan, sister Anne and 12-year-old nephew Joe in the support boat for the challenge.
