Dippers cool off after raising red hot amount

THERE will some time needed for cooling off from the excitement after the Red-Hot Chilli Dippers successfully fundraised over £15’000 for charities with their record-breaking North Channel swim.

What initally started out as an aspiration to have a junior team of swimmers traverse the grueling 21.5 miles of the North Channel from Ireland to Scotland over a year ago has seen the team ,who are comprised of teenage swimmers from the Newry and Armagh areas, soon to be ratified as the youngest group ever to complete the challenge.

The gravity of the teams achievement both in terms of charitable donations and record setting is not lost on Keith Garry, who is one of two coaches that saw the Dippers through the over 11 hour slog rom Belfast Lough to Portpatrick in Scotland, with the coaches own assessment of how the group performed during the event as being in his own words “stellar” despite many of the swimmers sustaining quite a few jellyfish stings along the way.

Stellar Performance

“The Red Hot Chili Dippers got on great during their swim of the North Channel. They jumped in the water at 5:44am. They started in the dark, having swam for about an hour in the dark and then the sun came up at 6.40am. The total times for the two teams were 11 hours 17 minutes and 11 hours 23 minutes.

“They were stellar, they kept supporting each other and they kept the vibe going all day so they stayed motivated. There was about £15'500 raised for the three charities, Aware, Pips and Autism N.I and I would say there would be more to come.

Keith elaborated on the method behind enabling the group of 12 swimmers to maintain their stamina throughout the over 11 hour swim, relating the fact that each member of the Dippers went in to water for an hour at a time before swapping with one of their team mates.

“The rules were that there had to be one swimmer, one hour at a time and you change every hour. You go on the same rotation meaning whoever went first has to then be the first one back at the end of the rotation.

“We had fairly rough conditions and it was fairly chappy the whole way through the day until maybe the last hour. There were probably only two or three swimmers who weren't stung by Jellyfish. The first couple of hours were hard as the tide was changing, the waves were coming in a different direction and it was dark so you couldn't see anything. So the first two to three hours at the start were exceptionally difficult.

“I have done crossings of the North channel before and the day the Dippers swam the North Channel was one of the more challenging days that I have seen for any swim of the channel.”

Record Setters

Whilst praising the performance the Dippers delivered on the day of the swim, Keith also related the encouraging fact that when ratified by the ILDSA , with the time the team completed the swim in, the Dippers will be the youngest ever group to swim the North Channel from Ireland to Scotland.

“When we got to Scotland one boat landed directly into Portpatrick Harbour and then another one landed just south of a lighthouse.

“Until ratified by the ILDSA who are the governing body, we are the youngest ever team to swim the North Channel from Ireland to Scotland.”

A long time coming

Coaches Keith Garry and Steven Grimley were with the Dippers every stroke of the way on their swim to Scotland, with their invaluable support no doubt contributing to the teams successful landing in Portpatrick harbour, also of equal value in this endeavour was each individual team members resolve and determination to see the challenge they had set themselves through to the end with their months of hard work finally paying off.

This was the case for 16 year old Abbey Christian Brothers School student Tom Magill, who described the swim from Belfast Lough to Portpatrick as being “a long time coming”

“We are glad to have finally done this as it has been a long time coming. This was a great opportunity to do something amazing and set a record, this was a great achievement but it makes it just a bit more special when you can do it helping others with those three charities. It is great that we have been able to beat our goals. We aimed for £8000 at the start and we have basically doubled this so it feels pretty good.

“The idea came about two years ago but we only started training last year. At the start we would have only been doing ten minutes at a time and we gradually built up and we started doing two hours at a time. In Carlingford Lough our local area the water temperature is probably about 17 degrees at the minute. We had to travel up to Donaghadee and Bangor a few times just to build up our tolerance to it. The biggest challenge in the run up to the event was the two hour qualifier as this was water of 14 degrees In temperature and you had to swim two hours straight in this.

“Having completed this in Helens Bay it made the North channel challenge a lot easier. Also in preparation for this we were swimming three times a week, twice in the pool and once in open water. We would regularly meet on a Sunday afternoon, or whatever our high tide was and go out for our long swim of the week.

“I was the second swimmer in the water for our team and I was in at 6.40am. We swam for an hour at a time. I came back out after the first hour and had six hours rest. It was very wavey when I first got in and the sun was rising so we got a lovely sun rise.

“The waves made it a bit more difficult but it started to calm down but it was a pleasant enough day in terms of weather and the water felt nice. The water itself was about 15 degrees in heat. I didn't get stung thankfully, but three or four others did.”