Indian teen youngest in the world to swim in North Channel between Ireland & Scotland

Snehan, a fourteen-year-old boy from India is the youngest in the world to swim in the North Channel, the strait between Northern Ireland and south-western Scotland. He performed the feat as part of a six-member team from India that crossed the 35km strait in a relay format. The independent team from India, comprising of three para swimmers and three able-bodied swimmers swam across the strait starting from 6:30 am and completed the swim by 9:09 pm.

Notably, the North Channel is among the Ocean's Seven or the list of seven marathon open water swims. The most challenging factor of swimming across the North Channel is that even the summer temperature of the water is around 12 to 15 degrees Centigrade. Swimming across such waters for a long duration requires special acclimatization and training, over and above the experience of marathon open water swimming.

Starting from Robbie Island (Northern Ireland), the Indian relay team took turns and swam to Port Patrick (Scotland), covering the 35km distance in a duration of 14 hours and 34 minutes. Being a challenging stretch to swim across, only the most experienced and confident swimmers take up this challenge and 14-year-old Snehan was just that, says his coach Vijaykumar.

In terms of the special training undertaken to get used to the cold water, Snehan and the team had reached Europe weeks in advance and started training for nearly four hours a day in the open waters.

Recalling his protege's feats, Dr M. Vijaykumar, Swimming Coach, SDAT, told WION that Snehan had earlier swam the 60km back and forth distance between two points along the Palk Strait - Dhanushkodi In Tamil Nadu and Talaimannar in Sri Lanka, within 19 hours and 45 minutes. He also confidently added that the next task in Snehan's sight is to swim across the English Channel.

Speaking to WION, Snehan said that he started swimming at the age of eight and then graduated to open water sea swimming and bagged Gold at the National Sea Swimming event at Goa and later swam back and forth across the Palk Strait. Outlining the challenges he faced in his latest adventure, he said that it was the risk of encountering poisonous jellyfish, small sharks, and seals. To avoid any mishaps, the swimmers had to apply ocean grease to keep their skin safe from the abrasion caused by sea swimming.