18 September 2021
Sussex Yacht Club is supporting the Rampion Champions: 3 Pier Challenge raising funds for Turning Tides, a local charity helping and housing local people.
On Saturday 18th September 10 runners swam 10 miles from Brighton to Worthing Pier in preparation for next years’ challenge – The Rampions! The following is Dave Leee’s account of this magnificent effort.
Well done to all those involved!
Back in July, I was asked by Jim & Hilary if I would be willing to help with Safety Boat cover for a forthcoming charity swim that was being organised by their Coastguard colleague Rob. I said “Sure, & I think I can do a lot more than that!”.
As many of you will know, here at SYC we are very keen to provide help & support to charities with waterborne activities. I approached Main Committee & was given the go ahead to allow Turning Tides to use our facilities for planning meetings & to use our clubhouse as a base of operations for the event. I also reached out to the other Rib owners at SYC if they would like to help, all who were able to, instantly said “Yes, sign me up!”.
The event was for 10 local running enthusiasts to put their physical fitness – and courage – to the test by taking to the sea for the first time. The brave runners announced the plan to swim ten miles from Brighton Pier to Worthing Pier.
So, after launching & rafting to A pontoon the previous day. Early in the morning on Saturday 18th we set out from SYC for the Palace pier. The skippers donated their time & fuel to the event. The SYC rib flotilla comprised these boats:
| Boat | Skipper | Tasking/Function | ||
| Ocean Ray | Jim Hall | Command boat with Rob the “Fat Controller” & Andy the Paramedic | ||
| Quba | John Redman | Rear Safety Boat | ||
| Zola | Ivan Cornish | Middle Safety Boat | ||
| Extreme | Dave Lee | Front Safety Boat | ||
| RibX | Adrian Weber | Photo/Media Boat |
We put our first swimmers in the water at 8 o’clock just off the Palace Pier. The strongest swimmers went first as they would be swimming against a rising tide for the first 2½ hours. Each swimmer would swim for either 1 mile or 45 minutes, whichever came first. I’m pleased to report that all the swimmers completed the mile well before the time limit. We completed the challenge 2 hours ahead of schedule which gave us extra time for “Debrief & beers”, which got a little messy due to an “Over & Out” fine, but we won’t go into that!
Pictures speak a lot louder than words, so I’ll let the photos do the talking …
Morning sun early on a Saturday morning off Brighton (L-R Rob, Ivan, Andy, Hilary, Jim).
Ivan and Hilary on Zola.
Swimmers had to make sure that they stayed warm.
Dominic getting ready to get into the water on Quba.
Going past the West Pier.
Swimming past the West Pier against the current.
Off Brighton Seafront.
Zola & Ocean Ray.
Coming up to Shoreham Harbour.
Shoreham Beach.
John Redman on Quba off Shoreham Beach.
Shadowing the swimmers off Lancing.
Adrian Weber with RibX and photo crew.
Jim Hall & Ocean Ray lead the flotilla…
…So that the swimmers go in the right direction.
Adrian and photo crew on RibX.
John bringing up the rear.
Coming up to the finish line off Worthing.
Post swim team photo at SYC 1.
Post swim team photo at SYC photo 2.
All in all it was a great day out on the water for team SYC supporting local events, something we haven’t been able to do for a long time.
The event was a resounding success, raising at least £3,600 for the charity £1,600 over the target.
If you would like to find out more about the event, Turning Tides & the work that they do for homeless people in West Sussex the link for the event is rampion-champions-3-pier-challenge.
If you would like to make a donation please do so on the event Just Giving Page.
If you would like to get involved with Ribs at SYC please get in touch with me or one of the other Rib drivers, and we’ll get something together.
Dave Lee
Posted: September 28th 2021
