PORTHCAWL POLAR BEARS SWIM THE ENGLISH CHANNEL TO SUPPORT NCI

25th August 2020. Four swimmers from the Porthcawl area have swum the English Channel to raise money for Porthcawl National Coastwatch Institution and Porthcawl Lifeboat.

The four local swimmers proved their fitness by swimming the English Channel this July in a relay format raising money for NCI Porthcawl and Porthcawl RNLI.  The team are known as Porthcawl Polar Bears and regularly train in the open water at Porthcawl. The four Polar Bears are Sian Jakeman, Peter Foster, Rosalind Edmonds and Tom Chapman and they completed their legendary swim on 12 July this year. The whole swim took 13 hours and 22 minutes and they were escorted and supported by pilot boat Sea Leopard.

Prior to the swim they decided to raise money for Porthcawl Lifeboat and Porthcawl’s National Coastwatch Institution and by the end of August they had raised over £1250 for each charity.

 Members of Porthcawl lifeboats fundraising team and members of the NCI Porthcawl station unit met outside the lifeboat station to thank the Porthcawl Polar Bears for their donation. David Shillaw, Chairman of Fundraising at Porthcawl RNLI Lifeboat said, ‘It is an incredible achievement and we congratulate and thank each swimmer for considering our charity particularly during a time when our donations are down’.

(Photograph courtesy of RNLI Lifeboats News). 

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About

Currently almost 60 National Coastwatch stations are operational and manned by over 2600 volunteer watchkeepers around the British Isles from Fleetwood in the North West, through Wales, to the South and East of England to Filey in North Yorkshire. 

National Coastwatch watchkeepers provide the eyes and ears along the coast, monitoring radio channels and providing a listening watch in poor visibility. They are trained to deal with emergencies offering a variety of skills and experience, and full training by the National Coastwatch ensures that high standards are met.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The words National Coastwatch Institution and Eyes Along the Coast and the NCI logos are Registered Trademarks of NCI.

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