Mincie Pie Dip 2025

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 🎄

Serpentine 2025

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!

Rick Snow completes the Lake District Triple Crown

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!

English Channel OTS Relay: Chanel No. 6

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!!

IGLA 2025

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!

IGLA 2024

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.

Channel swimmers of Out To Swim

On 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.

Dart 10k swim 2018

After a hot summer, the River Dart was a calm and balmy 16C this weekend for its swimmers. 6 OTS open water swimmers took part this year with Rowan, Izzy, Grace, Katie and Simon completing their first 10k, and Emily her 3rd Dart 10k qualifying her a “gold cap”.

The meandering salty river was punctuated with 2 floating feed station pontoons, lots of spectators waving along the right bank and 800 swimmers of all ages, sizes and speed in the water.

Due to a lack of rainfall over the past months, the current was considerably slower than previous years, but that (and the wetsuit chafe) didn’t stop Grace from cruising in at 2hr11. Katie came out of the water shortly behind Grace. Then Emily, Izzy, Simon and Rowan followed, all with a spectacular silt beard on their faces. 

In lieu of medals, all swimmers were awarded with a much appreciated Dart10k mug filled with hot chocolate as they cross the timing mat. 

“So great to achieve something I’ve been meaning to do for years! Looking forward to doing it all again in Wales (Hurly Burly 10k swim) in 2 weeks!” - Rowan