SUCCESSFUL CHANNEL SWIM

Evening Star, Issue 23383, 28 September 1939, Page 3

SUCCESSFUL CHANNEL SWIM

SWEDISH GIRL'S EFFORT . Sally Bauer, 21-year-old Swedish swimming instructress, swam the English Channel in 14h 65min on August 28 (says an exchange). She had saved up for three years to make the attempt. By the time sho gets back to Sweden, writes our London correspondent, it will have cost her £IOO. The only woman to make better time was the American, Gertrude Ederlc—14h 42min, in 1926. Sally Bauer entered the water at Cap Griz Nez, France, at 6.15 in the morning, and reached Dover at 9.10 p.m., after a three-hours’. battle with tho tide. She had been seen from Dover cliffs, swimming only one and a half miles from the Admiralty Pier, as early as 6.15. She used the crawl stroke all the way across. Landing in moonlight at the foot of the cliffs at Folkestone Warren, she was greeted on the' beach by Robert Hockley, aged 15, Joyce Turner, aged 17, both of Folkestone, and a railway night watchman.

The boy and girl had heard “ a man with a telescope ” say there was a swimmer making for shore.’ As Miss Bauer was near!tig the beach a Channel steamer _ passed, her, and those following' her in a Dover motor boat feared that the wash might end her swim too soon.

The wash struck her, but tho tide now carried her towards the beach fairly fast. As her feet touched ,sand she staggered out of the sea. People helped her up the beach amid cheers and cries of “Well done, Sally.’’ She looked exhausted, but she was smiling. She was taken back by motor boat to Dover.

Mr Briscoe Ray, representing the Amateur Swimming Association, and Mr L. W. Holloway, of the Royal Life Saving Society, acted as official witnesses. Also in her motor boat was Mr Gosta Westin, representing the Swedish Consul-General in London. Last year Miss Bauer swam 36 miles across the Kattegat, between Sweden and Denmark. It took her 17h smi a record. She swam 30 miles from Sweden to the Aaland Islands in 13h—also a record.