Barry Murphy

Swimmers report:

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On the 24 th August, I set off to swim my second Bristol Channel Swim in 4 weeks. My first swim was
not ratified due to a number of factors which I will not go into here but suffice to say that the facts
of that swim will be published in the near future.
As I was keen to get the BC done, Dave Berry had a solo slot and kindly offered to change this to a
Tandem swim so that we could both achieve a Solo Swim. Dave had previously come over to swim
the BC in July but the weather gods were not kind and he did not even get to start.
My second swim started from Porthcawl at 9:10am on the 24 th August 2023 in tandem with Dave
Berry
Weather and sea conditions were very good at the start but deteriorated as the day went on. John
and Luke from Swansea Watersports / Bristol Channel Swimming were our pilots, Peter was our
observer and Marian was my crew and Ashleigh was Daves crew.
We knew that conditions were going to get worse as the day progressed but we knew we were both
strong enough to handle what was thrown at us. We swam well together and enjoyed each others
company as we stroked it out to Devon. Our crew did an excellent job in keeping us fed through the
swim even though the conditions weren’t helping.
Eventually we arrived at the cliffs of Devon. Once again I was faced with a cliff finish but this time we
were not stopping. Dave and myself had spoken about this and knew what we had to do. We arrived
at the cliffs and were able to touch together. Dave decided that we should climb onto some rock for
the “money shot” which we did and both of us signalled with two fingers representing that we both
set off to get this done on two occasions.
I was delighted to complete this swim exactly four weeks after completing it previously. Two weeks
prior to this attempt I had completed Fastnet to Baltimore in my quest for the Irish Triple Crown. I
am hoping that this swim in the Bristol Channel is ratified by the BCSA so I can then claim the title of
Original Triple Crown recipient.

Original Triple Crown Swims
5 th July 2019 English Channel 11:52
10 th July 2022 North Channel 13:53
24 th August 2023 Bristol Channel 10:15

Combined Swim Time: 36:00:00

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