3 Out to Swim members took on the iconic Bantham Boomerang swim.
The Bantham Boomerang is a popular race and one that should be on every open water swimmer’s calendar as it sells out every time. Swimmers swim along the river then turn around when the curtain turns.
This year Phil, Mike and Lauren took part with Laura enjoying the weather and camping overnight 🏊♀️🏳️🌈🏊♂️
Several brave OTS swimmers took part in the annual Mincie Pie Dip at Brockwell Lido.
Every year, OTS takes to the cold water at Brockwell Lido and plunge in the cold waters with the promise of sauna and mince pies after 🎄
Lizzie Rowden from Bournemouth and Mathew and Alastair Bazeley-Bell from Bristol take on the Hurly Burly this year.
It was great fun and we hope more OTS members take part in future editions. 🏆
OTS Bournemouth x OTS Bristol x OTS London open water swimming branches did a small group Bantham Swoosh today.
Thanks to Lizzie Rowden and Alastair Bazeley-Bell for setting this up. We look forward to bigger teams in future years. 🏊♂️🏳️🌈🏊♀️
Various London swimmers took on the Serpentine this weekend, one of the London Classic events.
Swimmers covered various distances from 1 mile all the way to infamous Super Six!
Mike went to Copenhagen to participate in the TryFonden event where the whole city gets together to swim around its bay.
London's own Rick, Richard Snow, took on the Lake District Triple Crown during 2025 which included the first swim in June of Lake Coniston, 5.25 miles followed by Lake Ullswater, 7.5 miles in July and finally in August, the epic Lake Windermere end to end, an astonishing 11 miles end to end!
A large group from various OTS branches took part in the iconic Dock2Dock event covering various distances over the weekend.
Richard and Ian took part in the iconic 20 Bridge challenge in New York, swimming around Manhattan.
Attending the Pier2Pier event in Brighton has become a yearly tradition in OTS and this year, the club sent its largest group so far to take part in the event.
Some members from OTS London joined the South London Club’s Mile Race.
Every year the club hosts a mile race at the iconic Tooting Bec Lido, one of the largest lidos in the UK where the lanes measure just under 100m (double an olympic pool).
There were various competition categories and our members took home some medals.
On the Summer Solstice - 21 June 2025, the longest day of the year, 6 of our Out To Swim members from Brighton and London swam the English Channel as a relay.
This was a week earlier than expected due to the amazing heatwave weather conditions we have been having. They started at 0545 in the morning and did an amazing swim completing the 33km distance in 12h41m!
The team called Chanel No.6 included: Rhys Williams (capt), Christophe Donot, Melanie Blackwell, Henry Hudson, Pierre O'Reilly and Iain Gowers.
An article about their swim has been published in Scene mag which you can read: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/out-to-swim-completes-swim-of-the-english-channel/
After a year of training through cold winter waters and preparing for night swims the team has done an amazing performance and demonstrated that with support, dedication and our wonderful OTS community spirit, everyone can accomplish their goals. Huge congratulations to the team!!
Diogo and other London swimmers crossed the pond to participate in IGLA 2025 in Washington DC.
Diogo decided to brave the 3K Open water event while Richard and Tom cheered him on.
We all had a lovely brunch after to celebrate Diogo’s last place in the event!
Diogo from OTS London went to IGLA 2024 in Buenos Aires and participated in the Open Water event. Despite foot cramps, he was able to swim 3K and befriended Manchester polo players who also swam the open water event.
After the swim, there was a barbeque with dance and music before the medal ceremony.
Coach Ben and Tim at Otillo Swimrun
Read MoreOTS swimmers headed down to Dover to train channel style.
Read MoreOTS team swims across Bosphorus Strait from Asia to Europe.
Read MoreOn 15th / 16th July 2019 two intrepid members of Out To Swim, Vicki Carter and Michael Jennings, made solo English Channel crossings. Hunter Charlton, another OTS member, will make his crossing in the next couple of months. OTS has previously had two relay teams making the crossing in 2009.
It was a remarkable piece of luck that both Vicki Carter and Michael Jennings, MJ, ended up swimming on the same tide. They both set off from Samphire Hoe beach at about 10:20pm on Monday evening with two separate support boats.
The water was a toasty 17/18 degrees throughout, the weather fine and the sea calm. There was an almost full moon which gave the whole proceedings a fairy-tale glow. It was the perfect day for a crossing.
For Vicki this was the culmination of an eleven year quest – in 2008 she had a crossing for late September, but when it came to her tide the weather changed and she was unable to even start. Then life intervened with sick parents, but eventually she booked to go again in 2019.
MJ had given up competitive swimming a couple of years ago and needed a new challenge. His great friend Nick Murch encouraged him to enter a Lake Geneva relay and he got the bug. He also acted as support swimmer in the fiercely cold North Channel crossings Nick made in 2016 and 2018.
Vicki, MJ and Hunter all met on Dover beach in May 2019 to start their training for this year’s Channel crossings.
I was on-board Vicki’s boat with an old friend of Vicki’s, Kevin, and a new friend in the form of Hunter. Hunter and Vicki have trained together a lot, and both did a six hour swim in Weymouth harbour, which also doubled as Hunter’s Channel qualifier. Hunter swam twice during the crossing as Vicki’s support swimmer, for company and moral support - the rules are very strict that he is not allowed to pace her or even to go ahead of her at any point.
The crossing seemed easy for about the first ten or eleven hours: time passed quickly between the hourly feeds of carbohydrate drink and jelly babies; dawn dawned most goldenly, and Vicki was happy and having fun. On MJ’s boat he was serenaded and cajoled by two of his lovely mates, Mikey and Fiona - it looked like they had lots of fun. Into hour twelve we were in French waters and heading for the Cap Gris Nez. There was a vicious current pushing us off the Cap, but MJ just managed to get in, clambering onto the rocks to claim a crossing time of 12 hours 38 minutes, an amazing time. Vicki couldn’t quite push through and ended up having to swim a bit longer to land at Wissant beach, a little further along the coast. Hunter joined her for the last stretch and they greeted some French children on the beach with many Bonjours. She finished in 14 hours 40 minutes – or as her boat skipper said to her “well the official time then is 11 years, 14 hours and 40 minutes”.
They join a very elite group of fewer than 2000 people in the world who have made a solo crossing, fewer by far than those who have scaled Everest. Well done Vicki and MJ, you are truly amazing, and massive good luck to Hunter, where Vicki will return the favour as support swimmer, if she can keep up with him!
Oonagh Gormley.
OTS athletes’ first taste of a “swimrun” competition.
Read MoreA strong squadron of 10 hardy OTS swimmers set the fresh 8C Tooting Bec Lido ablaze (with their speed and power).
Read More
