P2P Plymouth to Provincetown
I'm excited to be supporting the upcoming Plymouth to Provincetown, MA, or P2P swim. Beginning in the early hours of Tuesday morning Greg O'Connor, Mo Siegel, Eileen Burke, Janet Harris, and David Barra will splash in Plymouth and attempt to swim the 20 miles across Cape Cod Bay.
The swim was first done sometime in the 60s and has not been attempted since (as far as I know), so this definitely is a pioneering effort. The weather forecast looks good. Swimmers are expected to finish in about 12 hours. I hope to tweet updates at http://twitter.com/8_bridges
The swim was first done sometime in the 60s and has not been attempted since (as far as I know), so this definitely is a pioneering effort. The weather forecast looks good. Swimmers are expected to finish in about 12 hours. I hope to tweet updates at http://twitter.com/8_bridges
Comments
We will be leaving from Whitehorse beach in Plymouth and shooting for the beach at Herrings Cove in P-town. Sart around 3:00am.
I have found that many people have attempted the swim from Plymouth to P-town or the reverse, but only Russell Chaffee of Sayre, PA has succeeded.
Chaffee was known for his long river swims such as the Susquehanna River (250 miles). He would swim 30 or so miles during day light and get out at night, much like the 8 Bridges.
He swam from Plymouth because of the counter clockwise rotation of the current in Cape Cod bay.
Chaffee made his swim on Wednesday August 14, 1968. He started from Manomet Beach in Plymouth at 4:00AM and finished at Herring Cove Beach just south of Race Point in Provincetown at 6:40PM, about 14 hour and 40 minutes. The distance is about 20 miles. The tide was going out when he got to P-town and he had to “work like mad” to finish. Chaffee was 41 at the time.
The first reported attempt for a bay crossing before Chaffee was in 1915. On a bet (most marathon open-water swims back then involved a lot of boasting and money to back it up) Henry Sullivan of Lowell (1st American to cross the EC!) and Samuel Richards of S. Boston left Nantasket way up in Hull and swam for P-town. Charlie Toth of Boston (3rd man to swim the EC) jumped in at the last minute. Richards quit after 5 hours, then Toth after 10. After 14 hour, with 9 miles to go, Sullivan got out.
There were several failed attempts in the 1950s to swim from P-town to Plymouth.
Greg O'Connor 10:22:13
Eileen Burke 11:10
Janet Harris and yours truly 11:45:35 (yes we were working on our syncro routine a bit)
It came together amazingly well. All newby swim-pilots and night escort virgins. Janet and I swam together with Rondi Davies as our entire swimmer crew... glad we have a bit of practice swimming together! Conditions were damn near perfect. We all took separate routes and landed at different spots at Herring Cove. We will be comparing notes sometime soon.
A new MOWSA swim is born!
http://openwaterpedia.com/index.php?title=Massachusetts_Open_Water_Swimming_Association
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/08/21/five-swimming-from-plymouth-provincetown-hopes-creating-new-marthon-swim-bay-state/5bjGgCJnClTeJ6Nuw33q5O/story.html
Just goes to show why the word "Barraesque" is an OWS adjective: http://openwaterpedia.com/index.php?title=Barraesque
-LBJ
“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde
Mike G
I think when facing a body of water, we all look for land on the other side and wonder... how far? how long? how cold? how difficult? could I? should I? will Clare let me? (OK.. the last one is less universal)
It was no surprise that the group of us had all been thinking of swimming this stretch of water for some time; especially considering the distance, temperatures, and currents which put it on par with the EC and CC in a region that has been a great incubator of channel swimmers and aspirants.
That we were able to connect our common goal here is directly the result of how closely knit the OW community is.
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
(I've written up the first part of my experience of the day, if anyone's interested: http://forums.usms.org/blog.php?b=24318)
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
http://forums.usms.org/blog.php?b=24345
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
http://forums.usms.org/blog.php?b=24372
Paul Rekoff will be splashing sometime tomorrow morning. There is a new MOWSA group on FB..... Go like it!
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
Stop me if you've heard this one...
A grasshopper walks into a bar...
https://elainekhowley.com/
The Cape Cod Bay crossing is an USA Atlantic Ocean swim modeled after channel swims such as Catalina or the EC. Just scroll up for some recent history of the swim.
http://www.massopenwaterswimming.org/cape-cod-bay-crossing-p2p/
->Forms->Rules. Kind of burried. We'll move it up the menu so it is more obvious. Thanks.
http://www.massopenwaterswimming.org/rules/
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
We have several in already for the 20-mile Cape Cod Bay crossing..
Stop me if you've heard this one...
A grasshopper walks into a bar...
https://elainekhowley.com/
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0E1qScYyeD1l9pJS9x8egFAmyeRvA5aYK
I am incredibly excited and impressed by this feat!
The application fee for the Cape Cod Bay Crossing (P2P) increases on May 1st. If you plan on attempting the channel length swim this season, you should get you application in to take advantage of the early submission savings. More information on the swim can be found on this thread and at the Massachusetts Open-Water Swimming Association (MOWSA) web site. http://www.massopenwaterswimming.org/cape-cod-bay-crossing-p2p/