THE CHANNEL SWIM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 2998, 22 September 1908, Page 5

THE CHANNEL SWIM.

WOLFFE FAILS AGAIN. WITHIN HALF-MILE OF CALAIS. Received September 21, 10.13 p.m. LONDON, September 21. J. Wolffe made another attempt to swim the English Channel. After being fifteen hours in the water he was almost across, failing within halfa mils of Calais. He was practically exhausted, oxygen having to be several time? ad/ ministered.

Wolffe has made several attempts during the past eighteen months to swim the Channel. His best effort up till the one recorded in the above cable waa made in August Ja3t year, btarting from South Foreland light at 11 o'clock one Monday morning, he made very rapid progress with a side stroke that he kept going at 24 to 26 per minute. He had plenty of company in the water, Wiedmann, the Dover aspirant to Channel honours, a young lady named Smith; and oth?r shimmers taking turns with him, whilst a Highland piper on an accompanying tug buat made \inerry music to keep un Wolfe's spirits. For ten hours he plugged alone comfortably, feeding at frequent intervals, and as night fell the lights of Calais came into view. Everybp-ly was surprised to find the French coast so near, for during daylight a heat haze had rendered it impossible to accurately gauge the swimmer's position. Up to the thirteenth hour Wolffe continued to "swim strongly, but then he began to tire. He stuck to his task, however, and seemed bound to succeed, for he cot within threequarters of a mile of Cape Grisnez. anti was by no means "spun out.'' Then, as bad luck would have it, a south-westerly wind, came up, the water became "poply, 1 " and try as he would, the swimmer could make no further advance shoreward. He, indeed, began to drift away from the land. For a time he reiused to be beaten, but shortly after two o'clock on Tuesday morning he turned to his trainer on the tug and called out, "I'm done." The trainer begged him to try a little longer, and Wolffe did his best to respond. He struggled on for a few minutes longer, and then collapsed. Pie had been in the water fifteen hours and a-quarter, and in that time had covered—swim and drift, abuut thirty-eight miles. It was a wonderfully line swim, and, excepting Webb's, equals anything that has been accomplished in the Channel.

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