Wait, I'm dumb. Is it water currents or map projection, or what?
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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Perhaps even losing orientation
Unless they’re a heaving idiot looking to be arrested and sectioned under the mental health act, they swim next to a support boat, who give them directions and are in communication with other vessels. The Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world.
I think the path would be more erratic if that was the case
It’s just really hard to follow google maps navigation when there’s no roads and waves.
No, there were probably waves.
+1 for pedantry.
I’ve edited my comment to add an Oxford comma, because I know everyone likes those.
That's not an Oxford comma. Oxford commas (also known as serial commas) are for lists that contain more than three terms.
You should just replace the "and waves" with "but there are waves" or something like that.
"waves and no road"
Now it's worse.
"Waves and no road" is what you're looking for.
It's the tidal current throwing the swimmer around. They swam along the same heading the entire time.
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Is it the tides?
Can't explain that
Sure looks like it to me
Like that block said to Caesar. Beware the tides of march.
Should have just gone in April.
yes
Being parabolic, it looks like some significant drift current.
I think you mean "sinusoidal".
Don’t say that, you have so much to live for.
Nah don't worry, he's just being hyperbolic
Not to get off too far on this tangent, but I hope OP comes back and cosines your statement.
For roughly six hours the tide will take the swimmer 'up' the Channel, and then as the tide changes direction, the following six hours will take the swimmer 'down' the Channel. This up and down movement of the water is relentless and unavoidable.
When traversing the English Channel, the boat pilot pays respect to the aformentioned tides when heading for France, which means the tidal affect will be perpendicular to the direction of the swimmer. It is incredibly rare for a swimmer to ever be swimming with or against the tide.
The moon's position relative to the earth and sun changes, creating different strengths of tide. The smaller tides are called neap tides, and the bigger ones are spring tides. Historically, swimmers have made their attempts on neap tides, as the belief is that this reduces the effect of wind against tide. It also reduces the risk of the swimmer missing the land target of Cap Gris Nez in France.
So she was swimming for roughly 18 hours? I'm impressed and terrified.
Savage feat of endurance. I wonder how many calories that burns.
All of them
At high intensity about 14k.
Damn, you can cross the English Channel on roughly 28 Belgian waffles?
Depends on how well you lash them together. They’re bound to get soggy though.
Lol.
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I have no source but I recall seeing a before and after picture. The before was fat. The after was skinny.
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Her sexual orientation has no effect on swimming skill, sir!
when i was young and stupid i used to swim to an island only 1 Km from the beach (-11.80574, -77.18933), and had to stop to recheck my direction, often i was way off course. the English channel is going to be way harder, better have a good compass, or be mindful of the time of the day and the position of the sun
Support boat
support boat sucks then
She went straight, the tide carried her back and forth as mentioned in other comments
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I was excited that you provided the coords. Thanks!
When I was young (also stupid) we were on holiday at Punta Verudela, Pula, (44.8348180, 13.8373873) and one day, that island in the distance (44.8312627, 13.8398307) looked too cool to not swim too it, and me, my dad and my brother decided to try and make it there. It looked pretty close, but I never swam so long in my life. Because we took our sweet time and had a pretty chill tempo, after about an hour, we made it! on our side it was all sheer and sharp cliffs though, so although the island was still cool and enticing, we had no idea if it was even possible to get up there somewhere, or how long it would take to swim around. Playing it safe, we swam back in about the same tempo and took another hour of relaxed swimming. Probably helped that the Mediterranean sea isn't as tidally active. Checking it now, the swimming distance seems around 440m (we approximated 1Km back then :) ) I wasn't scared at any point and just having fun, but thinking back now, so many things could have gone wrong. I think I would be a lot more afraid to try that again, without knowing what I'm getting myself into.
I fucking hate the way Facebook changed how the site works so that clicking on an image no longer puts it in your browser history. Earlier today I saw a post where the swimmer whose track was shown in this specific image responded to the comments. It was actually quite an amusing interaction and I wish I could go back and share it here.
But also: the swimmer was a she, not a he.
There's a sports scientist, I've forgotten her name but she wrote a book called Women are Not Small Men. In her book she says that long distance swimming is one sport that women actually outperform men in.
Edit: her name is Stacy Sims
"They're replacing the internet with something else" is literal. It's harder and harder to find what you want because you're not allowed to have what you want anymore. You're allowed to work hard till you die and hope Big Tech shares its merciful bounty with you. You can't spell "social media" without "soma."
thanks for finding the source, pretty interesting!
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Tide comes in, tide goes out. You can’t explain that.
Achshually... no I can't. Something about the moon idk I'm not a sciontwist.
Oh shoot, i just realized i am, but i didnt have my oil changed in the last 60,000 miles, so im probably not gonna be of much more use getting you to the moon.
Because he’s swimming the English Channel and not the English Strait, duh.
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