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July 14, 2018 By Andre Roberts

BLDSA Torbay 2018 – One tough swim

Start of BLDSA Torbay 2018.

Well that’s Torbay done for another year – a manic time of the year, that I absolutely love where some truly fantastic people swim 4 or 8 miles across the bay known as Torbay. This year’s event did have its ups and downs and was an extreme learning curve for me personally (even I have my limits). That being said, the standard of swimmers this year was truly extraordinary, with people travelling from the whole of the UK to take part.

This year’s swim was unfortunately tinted with a shortage of kayakers, but there was an overwhelming response through social media meaning most of our swimmers got a swim this year. Particular thanks must go to Hayley Barnard in this respect, who was a fantastic help and relieved some of the pressure on me in the week leading up to the swim. We will be putting in place fallbacks for next year so this doesn’t happen again and we don’t have 3 people not being able to swim (we did refund these in full and offer places free of charge on next years swim). The safety ribs as support couldn’t be used this year due to the rough weather, where controlling the rib at slow speed next to swimmer for 4 hours would have been a near impossible task.

The swim started off slightly delayed at 11:18 am from Meadfoot Beach, swimmers set off nervously heading for the other side of the bay. The start of Torbay is always interesting owing to the swimmer and kayaker having to find each other once the pack have moved off from land. Once the land crew and safety boats had established everybody was paired up – the atmosphere at Meadfoot Beach becomes a bit more relaxed. The swim secretary even found time to disappear off round Shag Rock for half an hour while the swimmers were battling it out in the middle of the bay.

We always say to people entering this event, the swim will leave you prepared for whatever challenge you’ve set yourself. The 2018 swim proved no exception, with strong winds blowing straight into the bay, leaving swimmers exposed to the elements and waves constantly battering them. This meant it was a real achievement to reach the 4 mile turn around buoy at Fishcombe Cove, since the first leg was, without a doubt, the most difficult part of the swim.

As ever, our safety crews carried out their role to the high standards which we all to often take for granted. Alongside Drew Gibson (https://www.facebook.com/drewgibsonsailing/?ref=br_rs) and Robert Banham from Paignton Sailing Club, the guys kept the swimmers and kayakers safe from fast moving craft and kept a watchful eye over everyone. Without these guys, our events wouldn’t take place – thank you for all your hard work.

Our safety boat patrolling.

No. 32, Steven Adams, was first around the turn buoy in an impressive time of 1 hour 32 mins 35 secs and then closely followed by Matthew Cockill just over a minute later. These two battled it out for the whole of the return journey back to Meadfoot with Steven Adams triumphing and winning the event in 3 hrs 30 mins 4 secs. Matthew Cockill still not far behind in a time 3 hrs 32 mins 22 secs – a true privilege to witness and fantastic sportsmen.

Hayley ready for the off!

The women delivered to, with Liane Llewelyn Hickling coming first in 3 hrs 58 mins 59 secs. It’s always a pleasure to have Liane at Torbay with her trusty kayaker Jo Blackburn, both long standing members of the BLDSA and countless volunteer hours given to help swimmers achieve their goals. Truly inspiring individuals who we can all aspire to. Hayley Barnard came in 2^nd, in an impressive time for the conditions of 4 hrs 39 mins 2 secs and setting herself in good stead for her Manhatten Island swim later this year – very best of luck Hayley, sure you’ll do great!

Alongside the fast times – we had first timers like Sian Lane taking part in one of her biggest swims yet completing the 4 miles in 2 hrs 48 mins 32 secs – Huge well done Sian and see you next year! Then there was veteran Steve Price (our race controller last year), who has now swam Torbay over 30 times – true commitment to the sport.

Sian post swim!

Torbay of course would not happen without the band of volunteers, who did an amazing job as always. Particular thanks needs to be paid to my right hand woman, race controller Louise Barber, who took everything in her stride and was a joy to work with. The lovely Sara Marley (who many of you probably met at registration), came all the way from London to help out and was also out at Fishcombe Bay marking your turn times/4 mile finish times. Samantha Poulsen, like Sara from the awesome Red Tops, who was a massive help landside and who you probably got marked up by. Then there was Teresa Roberts (my long suffering Mother), who ticked all of the kayakers in on the slip way. Past presidents of the BLDSA, Jean Wilkin-Oxley and Janet Wilson, did a fantastic job giving out first aid and always a joy to have down. Chris Hickling, thanks to an Irish Dancing related injury, was also landside providing excellent communication between us and the safety guys out on the water! And a huge thank you to our army of kayakers who provided excellent support! Without these guys, Torbay simply wouldn’t take place.

Thanks must also go to Dan Jepson, for his fantastic photography and video of the swim – one of my favorite parts of the process waiting to see what Dan has put together and this year he’s not disappointed! Check out Dan’s youtube channel for more of his work – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXdbeISbEqCPbiUb9BZ4ZkA

FInally thanks to Mark ‘Shezza’ Sheridan for all the support and helping with the presentations!

A huge well done to all who took part and thank you so much for coming to Torbay – see you in July 2019!

See below for results, photos and T-shirt orders 🙂

All the best,

André Roberts

British Long Distance Swimming Association

A very tried, but pleased swim secretary.

Presentation photos

Results

Female Male

T-shirt order

Order

Any questions or issues, please email them to me on andre.roberts@bldsa.org.uk

#BLDSATorbay2018

May 27, 2018 By Andre Roberts

Wykeham – the BLDSAs youngest swim secretary!

The baton for the BLDSA Wykeham Championship in late 2017 was passed over to Erin Hope, one of the promising young talents flourishing within the BLDSA. Erin is a well accomplished swimmer with many achievements to her name, including a record breaking crossing of the River Humber contending with strong currents and blinding sea mists, the BLDSA Two Way Windermere night swim (2015) and one of only a handful to complete the gruelling ice mile challenge also having competed in GB championships in 2018.

Erin enjoying the day with her big brother and cousin.

It’s hard to overstate what a daunting task taking on the organisation of one of the BLDSA swims is; getting to grips with safety procedures, getting officials in place from all over the UK, sourcing kayakers, managing entries and so much more. Erin stepped up to the mark and has taken all of this on while studying at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts achieving a really tough ask for a young person. Erin has managed this fantastically with her relaxed demeanour and good sense of humour. Erin has now reaped the rewards from a well organised day and night swim at Wykeham, setting the bar high for next year.

Erin was also supported by a fantastic team prior and during the event, with Liane Llewellyn Hickling mentoring her as the outgoing swim secretary – the BLDSA would also just like to thank Liane for all of her hard work over the years at Wykeham. During the event, Erin had good friend Hazel Killingbeck supporting her all the way, another one of the BLDSA’s rising stars in the sport. And of course proud Mum, Trish Stansfield, was on hand to help too! Our extremely dedicated and first class safety crews were also on hand too, giving Erin any support she needed. Thank you to everyone who helped Erin and giving her an extra boast in confidence knowing she had a great team to support her, vital for any swimming event.

Results from Wykeham will be released soon – in the meantime, a massive well done to Erin, definitely earned a cheeky bev or two!

May 20, 2018 By Richard Hardy

Privacy Notice GDPR

Our data privacy policy has been updated to take into account the new GDPR regulations that come into effect Friday 25th May.

You can find this document on the web site under the Resource Tab.

Rest assured the BLDSA has always taken data privacy very seriously and we never share any data public or private with any 3rd party organisations.

Privacy Notice

May 20, 2018 By Richard Hardy

Colwick Park 2018

Our first event of the 2018 season!!!

What an absolutely cracking day. Beautiful summer weather made for water temperatures ranging from 16.7 deg to 19 deg. All the swimmers taking part had a fantastic swim in the lovely sun baked lake.

A big thank you to all new and existing members for turning up and making a brilliant event.

Thank you to Patrick Smith for organising the event and all the volunteers who helped out.

We’re all looking forward to the next event at Wykeham Lake next week.

Thanks again to all those who supported this event after the troubles we encountered last year, it just goes to show that despite water problems last year – it was just bad luck – this venue provides a superb swim and with weather like today the BLDSA friendly atmosphere shone through!

February 4, 2018 By Andre Roberts

Response to SOWSA proposal

Edited: 22:14 08/02/2018

*SOWSA – Scottish Open Water Swimming Association

1. Outline

Over the past few months, the BLDSA has been made aware of plans to create an organisation in Scotland in the interests of promoting land access to different water bodies, increasing safety standards, providing accreditation for events and recording achievements of swimmers (completing a point to point swim in either wetsuit or skins). This has been proposed by event organiser Robert Hamilton and amateur swimmer Phia Steyn under the name the Scottish Open Water Swimming Association (SOWSA).

Correction: Stewart Griffiths only took an advisory role and was listed unknowingly as a founder of SOWSA.

SOWSA proposal in full – link

To anybody not involved in the politics of open water swimming or not aware of the context, this sounds reasonable and a desirable outcome – to have an organisation representing the interests of Scottish swimmers and promoting safety standards at events they compete in.

2. Our main concerns

Our concerns are three fold :-

2.1 – In the proposal, SOWSA outlines that it would like to work with organisations such as the BLDSA and ILDSA, but to our knowledge neither of us have been approached for our input. When the proposal also states “SOWSA does not stand in opposition or in competition to Scottish Swimming, BLDSA and ILDSA”, this seems at odds with their actions or lack of. However, this is not surprising bearing in mind Robert Hamilton’s past relationship with the BLDSA being at best strained.

2.2 – SOWSA outlines issues which are in duplication of what is already there; through us (the BLDSA) in terms of recording swims and all that entails and then the Outdoor Swimming Society (representing recreational swimmers throughout the UK) which already covers issues surrounding land access and free wild swimming throughout the UK with their respective working groups. Although the OSS is a limited company, the information they provide in this area is invaluable and it cannot be overstated how they have increased access to open water swimming through projects such as their online wild swimming map. They are there to promote wild swimming, supported by their commercial activity.

2.3 – The BLDSA is a democratic organisation accountable to its membership; where we are rightly held to account for how the association is run and how we spend the memberships money. We also operate on the basis of transparency, where members can at any point ask us for our documentation and we publish our accounts annually to that effect. This differs vastly from SOWSA, which although a proposed charity, was born through self appointed individuals with vested interests in their respective commercial activities and own disagreements with organisations like the BLDSA on swim routes and recognition. In marathon swimming integrity is key, which must involve transparent documentation and a set of standards (which the rest of the marathon Swimming community has abided by for years).

3. The need to respond

Although anybody can set up an organisation like this, if SOWSA claims to represent swimmers in Scotland, then it must expect to be held accountable for the way it conducts itself in terms of the consultation and provide transparency on the proposals. Rightly, the open water swimming community would expect nothing less from such an organisation. Indeed, this is why a response has been prompted from no less than 14 swimming groups in Scotland explaining their opposition to SOWSA and representing around 5,000 swimmers. Although SOWSA has attempted to respond, it’s done this over Facebook and answered questions selectively.

Link to Scottish swimmer’s response

For example, representatives of the BLDSA sent in their concerns and these were not responded to by any SOWSA official via normal channels of email and letters for such issues. The officials of SOWSA have also been involved with sending unsolicited messages to people raising their concerns through the official email SOWSA have advertised. For an organisation like SOWSA is proposing to be, this is completely unacceptable and on that basis alone, it is right to question the validity of SOWSA. They must also address issues of conflicts of interests owing to the commercial activity of the different individuals involved, suggesting this is a money making exercise rather than a genuine promotion of Scottish open water swimmers and wild swimmers alike.

4. Going forwards

From the proposals of SOWSA, there is clearly a demand for better information for pilots escorting marathon swims in Scotland and the rest of the UK. Therefore the BLDSA intends to develop an online guide for pilots and how they can get involved with our sport. There is also a need for the BLDSA to develop better pathways into our sport, which should include wetsuit swims as part of that. The BLDSA will therefore be putting plans together for wetsuit swims separate to our championship events, which will be put to the members of the BLDSA at the 2018 Annual Meeting. Since this is huge change for the BLDSA, it is right that we go to the membership on this fundamental issue.

Unlike SOWSA, the BLDSA does not (and has never) intend(ed) to have a monopoly on open water swimming. We strive to encourage people to get involved with our sport and develop their swimming to achieve the extraordinary goals they set themselves. We fully support the the collective responses from the 14 groups in Scotland and the response from the Outdoor Swimming Society. There is clear opposition to the proposal of SOWSA, we hope the proprietors take notice of this and take more care to consult the open water swimming community with the complete transparency swimmers in Scotland and the UK have come to expect.

—

André Michael Roberts

On behalf of the elected executive and members of the British Long Distance Swimming Association.

For any issues relating to this matter, please email andre.roberts@bldsa.org.uk.

To sign the petition, go here – https://www.change.org/p/oscr-we-oppose-the-sottish-open-water-association-proposal-as-it-stands