New Hampshire teen successfully swims across English Channel

SPRINGFIELD, N.H. — Vera Rivard, 16, has made quite a splash.

The Springfield, New Hampshire girl, who is a junior at Kearsarge Regional High School, just completed a pretty incredible feat.

On September 1, Vera successfully swam across the English Channel. She made her way from England to the shores of France in the water all on her own power.

“We started at 9:38 in the morning and then I finished at 11:48 that night, so that time lapse is 14 hours and 10 minutes,” Rivard said.

The water was 64 degrees and choppy as Vera swam. She was accompanied by a pilot boat carrying a crew and her mother and sister. Vera stopped about every 45 minutes to eat an energy gel and have a powdered energy drink. Per Channel Swimming Association rules Vera had to tread water during her breaks.

“You cannot touch a boat you can’t touch a person and you can’t touch anything that will aid you in any way to swim such as anything that floats or something like that,” she said.

The English Channel is known for its often treacherous conditions, thanks to large waves, strong currents and being a busy shipping lane.

“It’s actually a very busy shipping lane. There are 800 ships big ships that go past every day,” Rivard said.

After completing the swim Vera stopped at a pub in Dover, England where it’s tradition for all who’ve swum across the English Channel to sign their name and time on the wall.

“It felt very surreal because it’s been a dream of mine for so long that it just didn’t seem real in a way. It was like I just did that but it doesn’t feel real at some point,” Rivard said.

The English Channel is considered one leg of the triple crown of open water swimming. Rivard has already completed one of the other legs, a swim around Manhattan. All that’s left is the Catalina Channel. That’s a 20 mile swim from Catalina Island to the California mainland.

Cox Media Group