Once again, another truly wonderful Brownsea Island Swim, the weather held up beautifully and the wind against tide made for an extremely tough swim on the back half of the island, right into the finish funnel. It was certainly a much talked about topic by the swimmers on the finish line whilst getting their breath back and recovering. No one said it would be easy and after all the Swim T-Shirts do state “Brownsea Island Challenge”, well guess what – it lived up to it this year.
Although 300 swimmers were on the start list, 13 failed to show which I have to say is disappointing, as there were swimmers still on the reserve list who would have loved to have had the opportunity. That a side, it meant that 287 started the swim, which saw some extremely fast flowing spring tides at the start line. Despite the extremely challenging conditions only two swimmers did not complete their distance, so all in all a tremendous achievement all round.
As is customary with each swim now, we do encourage the swimmers to use the event to generate sponsorship for a charity of their own choosing. This year a staggering £23124.00 has been pledged to a large number of charities, which in itself is an amazing achievement and makes the hard work that goes into organising the whole event even more worthwhile. A list of all the charities that will be benefit from the 2015 swim is shown at the bottom of this article.
As with every Brownsea Swim, we have to give a big shout out to all the Marshals, the Guys and Girls in the safety boats and on the paddle craft without whom, the event would not take place. There were 35 marshals, 54 paddlers 12 safety boats with at least 2 crew in each one, plus the Half Swim Finish Team, add all that up and you have over 100 people who gave up there time to enable the swim to take place.
A big thank you must also go to the National Trust -Brownsea Island and The John Lewis Partnership _ Castle who support the event 100% and its great to see their own swimmers taking part now. Lastly but not least the Brownsea Island Ferry company that support us and assist with getting the swimmers and marshals to and form the island every year.
The official photographer David Beater has all the photographs available to view and purchase here, the password is Brownsea there are some great photos there and its well worth a look – go on treat yourself to a memento.
David has also published his own blog about the event as well which can be seen here.
2015 RESULTS
Times given below are [hr.min.sec]
Guy Giles led the field home for the 5th year running, in a slightly slower time than previous years of [ 1.19.05 ], I said it was a tough one 🙂 though still very respectable, to win Overall and win the Mens Wetsuit Full Distance Category.
Oliver Wilkinson came in a minute behind [ 1.20.22 ] to claim the Mens Non Wetsuit Cetegory for the 4th Year running
Katie Nimmo was close on Oliver’s heels literally, to claim the Ladies Wetsuit Cateogry [ 1.20.30 ] for the 3rd year in a row.
Sarah Wylie colmpleted the category winners of the full distance by finishing in [ 1.30.33 ] to win the Ladies Non Wetsuit Category for the 4th year in a row.
The Half Distance Wetsuit Category was won by Tom Francis in a time of [ 1.27.16 ] on behalf of BattleBack.
Sam Ball (14yrs of age) won the Half Distance Wetsuit Category on belhalf of one of our local Life Saving Clubs – Branksome Surf Life Saving Club in a time of [ 0.48.57 ].
The table below is a list of the top 3 placings for each Category for the 2015 Swim – congratulations!
| Ladies Non Wetsuit (Full Dist) | ||||||
| 101 | Miss | Sarah | Wylie | N/A | 1.30.33 | 1st |
| 103 | Mrs | Hannah | Wiltshire | Poole Swimming Club | 1.34.53 | 2nd |
| 105 | Miss | Tasha | Morey | N/A | 1.36.13 | 3rd |
| Ladies Wetsuit (Full Dist) | ||||||
| 201 | Miss | Katie | Nimmo | Cheltenham Swimming & Waterpolo Club | 1.20.30 | 1st |
| 208 | Miss | Helen | Oneile | Zoom Tri Club | 1.30.06 | 2nd |
| 204 | Miss | Amanda | Read | Rg Active Blueseventy | 1.30.16 | 3rd |
| Mens Non Wetsuit (Full Dist) | ||||||
| 301 | Mr | Oliver | Wilkinson | Gloucester Masters | 1.20.22 | 1st |
| 302 | Mr | Marc | Newman | EDOWSC | 1.30.02 | 2nd |
| 303 | Mr | Andrew | Huckle | Wycombe District | 1.30.33 | 3rd |
| Mens Wetsuit (Full Dist) | ||||||
| 401 | Mr | Guy | Giles | TORQ Swimming | 1.19.05 | 1st |
| 413 | Mr | Nigel | Woods | Newpot Pagnell Swim Club | 1.23.53 | 2rd |
| 411 | Mr | John | Smith | Kenilworth Masters Swimming Club | 1.27.24 | 3rd |
| Non Wetsuit (Half Dist) | ||||||
| 13 | Mr | Tom | Francis | BattleBack | 1.27.16 | 1st |
| 14 | Mr | John | Huntington | Battleback | 1.33.03 | 2nd |
| Wetsuit (Half Dist) | ||||||
| 3 | Mr | Sam | Ball | Branksome Chine Surf Life Saving Club | 0.48.57 | 1st |
| 4 | Miss | Bethany | Casson | N/A | 0.49.27 | 2nd |
| 7 | Mr | Mark | Hutchinson | N/A | 0.57.25 | 3rd |
The table below list the Charities that will benefit from this years swim
| TOTAL RAISED BY 2015 Brownsea Swim £23,124.00 | ||
| Age UK Essex | David Sheldrick Wildlife TruNueva Esperanza, Nicaraguast | PAU Southampton |
| Alzheimers | Dog Trust | Prostate Cancel UK |
| British Heart Foundation | Dove House School | RLSS Poole Lifeguard |
| British Heart Foundation | H4H | Ronald McDonald |
| Cancer Research | Lewis Manning | Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charities |
| Canine Partners | Macmillan | Salvation Army |
| CAP | Marine Conservation | Snowdrop |
| Cash for Kids | Mental Health Foundation | Stroke Association |
| Children's Adventure Farm Fund | Montacute Special School | The Parkinson's Society |
| CoPS | Mudeford Rangers | Tree of Hope |
| COSMIC | National Trust | Warminster Swimming Club |
| Cystic Fibrosis | Nueva Esperanza, Nicaragua | |