Heather Clatworthy Becomes First to Swim Moville to Portstewart Since 1929

Photo Courtesy: Heather Clatworthy (Twitter)

Heather Clatworthy swam from Moville to Portstewart on Wednesday. The 34 year old Irish woman became only the second official swimmer of the 13 mile distance, and the first to complete the feat since 1929.

Clatworthy completed her swim off Ireland’s north coast in four hours and 15 minutes, though she had expected it to take closer to eight hours.

The Portstewart native was inspired to do the swim after growing up playing on the beach. She explained,

“I was nine or 10 I was in my grandparents’ house when I was bored on a Sunday and was reading through some of their local history books and I read about this girl Mercedes Gleitze that had done the swim, and I said ‘oh my goodness, someone has actually done it’, so that planted the seed in my head and I knew I always wanted to do it but just never got round to it”

In her 18 months of training, she even had the opportunity to connect with Gleitze’s, 81 year old daughter.

Along the way on Wednesday, she even swam with some dolphins. The swim was officiated by the Irish Long Distance Swimming Association. Clatworthy used the swim to raise money for the Portrush RNLI, promoting outdoor recreation in Portstewart.

4 hours and 15 mins!! pic.twitter.com/PzYGJBpnzP

— Heather Clatworthy (@SeaSwimHeather) July 27, 2016

Read more from The Belfast Telegram here.

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