The Improbable Dream

Ask a child what they want to be when they grow up, and the answers are usually ambitious and exotic. Astronaut. Paleontologist. Professional athlete. When you are young and blessed with a vivid imagination, anything seems possible.

Laura Goodwin’s childhood dream was equally ambitious, to be sure, but a tad unusual.

“I remember learning when I was a kid of about 9 that it was possible to swim from one country to another,” she says. 

Specifically, young Laura had read about someone swimming the English Channel, wading into the water at Shakespeare’s Cliff or Samphire Hoe, just down the coast from Dover Harbour in England, and getting out at Cap Gris-Nez in Calais, France.

“My question was, ‘Why wouldn’t you want to do it?’” she says.

Alas, reality intrudes at some point between childhood and adulthood. The advanced degree, hundreds of hours as a jet pilot, and rigorous physical requirements restrict the astronaut field to an elite few. Would-be paleontologists lose interest in dinosaurs somewhere along the way. Only the most genetically gifted make a living playing sports.

But Goodwin’s dream is alive and well. About 35 years after learning that it’s possible to swim from one county to another, she is set to attempt an English Channel crossing this summer.

“This is the realization of a dream,” she says. “That’s very exciting.”

Goodwin is a swim and triathlon coach based in Raleigh who does her open-water training in Wrightsville Beach. Her Channel swim is scheduled for the week of July 12-19. Swimmers must register with one of two certifying organizations and book a boat and pilot to monitor the crossing. The boat captain decides if conditions warrant an attempt. She has the second slot in her week. 

“After the first person goes, the next good day will be my day,” she says.

The key word there is attempt. In the world of endurance sports, the English Channel swim ranks among the most difficult endeavors.

“One in five attempts make it,” Goodwin says matter-of-factly.

The first person to make a crossing was Royal Navy Capt. Matthew Webb in 1875. Since then, about 14 a year have succeeded. Of the 2,097 to make it, 37 percent have been women.

The width of the Channel between Dover and Calais is almost 21 miles. To put that in perspective, the “marathon” open-water swim in the Olympics is 6.2 miles.

The distance, while daunting, is only part of the challenge. There’s also the cold water, potential for strong winds and high waves, and an abundance of jellyfish, seaweed and flotsam. Oh, and the Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world with 600 tankers passing through and 200 ferries and other vessels going across daily.

“I say this a lot. There are a lot of things that can stop you in the Channel,” Goodwin says. “Jellyfish are a big concern for me. That’s not something I can prepare for. It can be dark, it can be cold, it can be rainy. Even if you get the perfect day, you still are swimming over 21 miles in water under 62 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Fast swimmers can make it in seven hours under ideal weather conditions. In poor conditions, it’s been known to take 27 hours or more.

“It varies a lot between swimmers and the conditions,” Goodwin says. “It can be incredibly choppy. I’ve been told by people who have done it before that it will probably take 10-12 hours.”

In the early 1920s, English mountaineer George Mallory launched three unsuccessful attempts to climb Mount Everest. There had been no known summits of the world’s tallest mountain (and wouldn’t be until Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top in 1953). When asked why he would try such an impossible feat, Mallory famously replied, “Because it’s there.”

Goodwin’s attitude toward the Channel is much the same.

It’s notoriously difficult. It will require pushing her body to previously untested limits. There is certainly no guarantee of success.

But “success” doesn’t necessarily mean wading out of the water onto French soil. The true achievement is simply attempting the impossible. Or, as she puts it, being motivated and optimistic and willing to fail.

“It is hard,” she says in a blog post. “But it is kinda fun to put yourself up against something that is this crazy hard. Something you are not quite sure you can accomplish.”

Goodwin is a member of North Carolina Masters Swimming but doesn’t claim to be an elite athlete. The most difficult thing she’s done in her life, she jokes, is completing grad school.

But she loves to swim, particularly in open water, and her childhood dream never completely faded.

She began to get serious about an attempt in October 2014, when she contacted a Channel coach. The timing wasn’t yet right — her children were 6 and 2 — but that small step moved the dream from a nebulous “someday” to a concrete “find a day and put it on a calendar.”

Goodwin’s training became more purposeful. Her research into what it would take to make the swim became more targeted.

She discovered the requirements to register with a certifying organization, and the need to book a boat two or three years out. She targeted 2021 as the year, but the pandemic deferred the attempt to this year.

With the boat booked and the date on the calendar, training became all consuming. She is in the pool a minimum of two hours every weekday. Weekends are spent in long open-water swims, alternating between a lake in the Raleigh area and Wrightsville Beach.

At Wrightsville Beach, she’s joined by members of Swim Wilmington NC, a group of open-water enthusiasts who form a big part of her support team. Her most frequent training partners include Burak Erdem, Michel Heijnen, Mike Treman, Paul Denison, Henry Singletary and Bob Gibbons.

The trips to the coast are vital to help get her accustomed to swimming in cold water. In the winter, ocean temperatures off the Carolina coast drop to the low 60s — about the same as the Channel in the summer.

“It’s all about acclimation,” she says. “Wrightsville is perfect for training.”

It’s important because English Channel swimmers are required to compete in the same conditions as Capt. Webb faced in 1875. That means no wetsuits.

“There are a lot of purists out there,” Goodwin says. “Thank heavens no one is going to make me drink brandy. [Webb] did brandy and beef broth.”

She was in Wrightsville Beach the first weekend in December, when she cleared an important hurdle. The certifying organizations require a six-hour qualifying swim in water that is 60F or less within 12 months of the English Channel swim window. Goodwin completed the test, accompanied by Treman in a kayak.

“There was crazy wind against us that day,” she says. “We made nine miles.”

The next big step is a temporary move from Raleigh to Bournemouth, England, with her husband and two children, now 13 and 9 and old enough to enjoy and remember the journey. She plans to join up with a Channel training group.

“I’m looking forward to that part of it,” she says. “I really enjoy new experiences, meeting people, travel, going to new places.”

The greatest experience, of course, will come when she steps into the water off the coast of England and attempts to swim to France.

“It’s a storied swim,” she says. “Everybody knows the English Channel swim.”

Her 9-year-old self would be proud.

Follow Her Blog: http://easytotri.com/blog/ 

For July 12-19:

Laura Goodwin’s attempt to swim the English Channel is scheduled for that week, she has the second slot.