Pembroke student to swim the Channel

Dan Shailer knows that the call will come before 6.30 pm. The only question is: on which day?

As soon as Dan puts the phone down, he knows he will need to head to Dover, ready to swim the Channel early the next morning .

Dan is swimming the Channel to raise money for the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). MCS is the UK’s leading marine charity and it works to ensure that the seas are healthy, pollution-free and protected. The experience of swimming through pollution and waste and seeing it left behind on beaches and in the water during his training has strengthened Dan views on the need to take better care of waters around this island.

"In the past year I've been lucky enough to experience some of the wonder we have to lose if we fail to protect our sea: not only from swimming with wildlife under the water (from spider crabs to seals, porpoises to mesmerising jelly fish), but meeting communities of swimmers for whom rivers, lakes and the coast are a real mental and physical lifeline. The rate at which we are discovering how important our connection with wild and 'blue' spaces is, is only matched by the speed with which we continue to destroy them.

"The Marine Conservation Society is only one of a handful of great charities protecting the ocean, but they are particularly persuasive to me because of an all-round, holistic approach ranging from education and activism to political engagement and legislative advocacy. The sea is tremendously entangled between political line-drawing and powerful industry interests - not to mention cultural relationships and fears. Because of this, any conservationism which fails to take an all round approach is not fully equipped to fight for the ocean."

After achieving his initial fundraising target of £5,000, Dan now hopes to raise £10,000.

The Channel

At its narrowest point, the Channel is only 21 miles wide, around 1,352 lengths of Parkside Pool. However, the movement of the sea means that swimmers end up taking S-shaped routes across the Dover Strait, which can add several miles – or more – to the swim. The Channel is also the busiest shipping lane in the world, with over 400 commercial vessels, including takers, containers and ferries using it daily.

For several months, it wasn’t clear whether any Channel swims would be going ahead, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this uncertainty, Dan continued his training. "Being at home during lockdown helped me focus on training and recovery. I've gotten much more and more regular sleep than I tend to during terms for example!" Living near the Dorset coast meant that he was able to regularly swim in the sea, something he wouldn’t have been able to do if he had been studying in Cambridge. The switch from exams to extended essays also helped, as it allowed the second-year English student to focus on his training.

Although Dan had intended to do his swim in late August, the training he was able to do in lockdown gave him the opportunity - and the confidence - to take an earlier slot that had been freed up through a cancellation.

Training for the Challenge

Dan had to build up his strength and stamina gradually. During Michaelmas, he focused on rowing and land work. In January he switched his attention to the pool, doing a mix of interval sessions, a weekly long swim and land sessions. By February, he could swim 10km, and from May, the focus was on spending longer and longer in the water. He did his qualifying swim of six hours in water that was no warmer than 15.5 degrees centigrade in June. Earlier this month he completed an eight-hour swim. In total, he's swum 280 miles during training.

As well as coping with the swell, open water swimmers have to get used to swimming in colder water. In July the Channel normally fluctuates between 15-18 degrees, while a public swimming pool is c.30 degrees. Dan started the acclimatisation process with visits to lidos and a balmy 5.3 degree February swim in the Cam (for reference, 5.0 degrees and below counts as ice swimming). During lockdown he sought out pools and rivers but found that as spring set in, the water became too warm, so switched to sea swimming. Accompanying him would be his dad or girlfriend in a kayak, ready to alert approaching boats and ward off jelly fish.

The third physical issue a Channel swimmer faces is refuelling during the swim. Every second you stop to feed adds to the time you have to spend in the water. Dan will be accompanied by a pilot boat, the Masterpiece, but is not allowed to touch the boat at any point during the swim. A team member will place food and/or drink in half a milk carton, attached to a piece of string on a carabiner, which will be lowered over the side for Dan to grab. During the first half of the swim he will take on products which slowly release energy, then in the second half, as fatigue sets in, he will switch to items which are high in sugar and immediately release energy. Although Dan is comfortable taking on nourishment in rough waters, he plans to take sea-sickness tablets to help combat nausea.

As Channel swimmers are not allowed to wear wet suits, they need to increase their level of body fat to help insulate their internal organs from the cold. Over the training period, Dan has gone from weighing 78kg to 90 kg. "I struggled to gain weight during term, but the kilos miraculously started sticking at home. The snack cupboard proved so helpful I almost overshot my target..."

Strength in Body, Strength in Mind

Swimming the Channel is as much a challenge for the mind as it is the body. Dan’s longest swim of eight hours is still four hours less than the twelve hours that he hopes to finish in.

The long swims have shown him that he can handle being uncomfortable for an extended period of time and that he is far more physically resilient than he thought he was: "The hardest aspect of lockdown has probably been training alone. I've realised this week I've spent a lot of time setting my own training, but probably deep down waiting for a grown up to come along and show me what to do. That hasn't happened and, ultimately, I think I'm mentally stronger for it."

It wasn’t until he attended a training camp in Dover and had the chance to talk to other swimmers who had already done a Channel swim that Dan felt confident that he was ready.

He has also drawn inspiration from the writings and achievements of other long-distance swimmers, such as Ross Edgeley, Lewis Pugh, Lynn Cox, Diana Nyad and Mercedes Gleitze.

Dan has thought through the issues that could arise during the swim, and is confident he knows what he will do if he is faced with any of these in real life. Hearing Sarah Thomas, who swam the Channel four times in a row, talk about what happened when things went wrong during her swims and how she reacted in these situations was particularly helpful.

"I feel quite calm, in large part because I'm lucky enough to have my family and loved ones around to keep me busy and distracted. I know as the week wears on I will start to feel more nervous and when I finally do get the call it will be a struggle against nerves to get some food down and a final bit of sleep. I am torn between panic and complacency: the constant worry is that I have not prepared enough, balanced with the belief that, by the numbers, I am more than ready. As Lewis Pugh put it, the trick is finding a mental space between the two 'psyched up, but not psyched out'."

Whenever that phone call comes, Dan will be ready.

Read Dan’s thoughts and reflections on his training blog:

https://danswims.wixsite.com/channel/blog

Make a donation to the Marine Conservation Society, please visit Dan’s JustGiving page:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/dan-shailer-channel-swim

An article by Dan on how COVID-19 has affected Channel swims this year:

https://outdoorswimmer.com/blogs/how-has-covid-19-affected-english-channel-swims-this-year

All photos: Copyright Dan Shailer.