Challenging the Channel

BY ED RICHARDS

Copyright (c) 2004, Daily Press

 

Ron Collins, a Tabb High School graduate, gets swept off course and fights cold and tough current, but accomplishes the feat of swimming the English Channel in 14 hours, 7 minutes.

September 21, 2004

Now Ron Collins knows why people refer to swimming across the treacherous English Channel as the Mount Everest of Swimming. "It's the hardest athletic thing I've ever done," Collins, a 1980 Tabb High School graduate, said Wednesday after his return from England. "More people have scaled Mount Everest than have swum across the channel."

Collins overcame everything from choppy waves, 20-knot winds, frigid water and a wicked current to add his name to an elite fraternity of swimmers who have made the crossing from England to the shores of France.

Collins, who said about 600 swimmers have made the crossing, accomplished the feat on Sept. 5th. His objective was to make the crossing from Dover, England, to Cap Gris-Nez, a 21-mile distance, but he wound up swimming closer to 30 miles after the current swept him off course.

A couple of miles into the swim, Collins became ill and had bouts of vomiting and diarrhea after eating some Snickers bars and getting seasick from the saltwater that kept getting in his mouth. Before it was over, he had a swollen tongue that was peeling at the top and chafed skin on his chest and neck that resembled second-degree burns. "The swim tore me apart," he said.

The trip took 14 hours, 7 minutes. He thought it was going to take 10 hours. "I started to get worried and knew something was wrong after about 10 hours because I couldn't see the French shore," Collins said. His boat pilot, responsible for guiding him across the channel, said Collins missed the landing point. So he backtracked about 10 miles before reaching the shores about 2 miles from Cap Griz-Nez four hours later.

While coming ashore, he was cheered on by several Frenchmen who were partying there.

"They knew what I had done," Collins said. Collins, 42, said he didn't like his time but "once I got to sleep on it, I told myself I made it and that was the most important thing."

Collins said he felt he lost four hours because of a late start. To take advantage of the tides, the pilot told him to be ready to go from the Shakespeare Beach at Dover at 2:30 a.m. Collins was ready, but not the pilot. They didn't get started until 3:15.

Collins said he never thought about quitting. "I wasn't going to get back on the boat no matter how cold or tired I was. It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to become part of an elite channel fraternity," he said. "As the day went on, I was freezing the whole time - 64 degrees is cold - and I was shivering but I didn't whine and complain." Wetsuits are forbidden for a certified crossing by the Channel Swimming Association. During "feeding time" every 30 minutes, he snacked on Snickers bars and drank Gatorade thrown to him on a string from the nearby boat. At no time was he allowed to touch the boat. Collins, who swam the 24-mile Tampa Bay Marathon in 1998 and the 28-mile Swim Around Manhattan (N.Y.) in 2002, felt swimming the channel was a must. "As a marathon swimmer, it's something you have to do before you die. It's something you need to do to put on your resume," he said.

Collins, who swam for the local Coast Guard Blue Dolphins from 1976-80 before graduating from Virginia Tech in 1984, said he has no plans to try to better his time. "I don't know if I'll ever do it again," he said. "It will be a long, long time if I do."