Mary-Beth Hebron and Savannah Mackenzie completed two successful Castlefoot Swims on Wednesday 17 August in 52 minutes 37secs and 52 mins 33 secs respectively. They entered the water at the steps outside the Royal Albert Cafe at 5pm and the team mates swam together all the way round on a lovely sunny evening. The water was relatively calm but did get a “wee bit choppy” behind the Luna Park according to the boat crews, this didn’t faze either of the girls who just ploughed on and showed true grit and determination. This swim is the culmination of a lot of hard work from both girls both in the pool and at Wykeham Lakes each Monday Evening. Congratulations to you both.

I feel at this point I must give full credit to the boat crews, open water swimming is in a completely different catagory to pool swimming when it comes to Safety and Kingfishers has always excelled at looking after their swimmers and tonight was no exception. For our regular boatman Phil Dickinson and his trusty mate Kev Sykes the swim started at 1.30 in the afternoon when they went out to Wykeham to load up the boat and bring it into town, they then battled with tourists and random dafties who came out in the sunshine to get down to the harbour and secure a mooring, which was no mean feat on this occasion as a new Harbourmaster is in place, and he is not yet used to our desire to swim roud the headland at short notice. All boat crews were on the pier for 4pm,

The Kingfishers boat contained Phil, Kev and Jonny Lucas and the second boat was supplied by Scarborough Sub Aqua Club and was manned by Barry Samples, Pete Bridgewood and David Morgan. The last piece of the safety cover much to the amusement of everyone on the Marine Drive and at The Albert Cafe came in the shape of Gav Kerrigan, he carried his canoe from the top of the cliffs down, winding his way like a tortoise down the paths and then slid down the steps to launch as there was no beach! The canoe is really important in addition to the two boats as it can get so much closer to the swimmers.

I’m sorry to seem to go on a bit about the crews, but without them there is no open water section and I feel it is really important that everyone is aware of what preparation is involved before hand to get these swims off the ground.

Brilliant Result for Kingfishers – Well Done everyone