You Can if You Try: Pat Gallant-Charette Oldest Woman to Cross English Channel at 66

Photo Courtesy: NASA, wikiCommons

History is being made this week in open water swimming: First, a Seven Sisters team of six completed the first all-female relay double crossing of the Catalina Channel. Two days later, Mitali Khanzode, a 15-year-old girl native to Sunnyvale, Calif., became the youngest person to swim between Italy and Sicily.

Opposingly, Pat Gallant-Charette, 66, is now the oldest swimmer to complete a historic open water feat – The English Channel. In 2012, Gallant-Charette was named one of Swimming World’s 101 Movers and Shakers in Open Water Swimming. Since, she has continued her swimming career and has continued to progress.

On June 17, 2017, Gallant-Charette completed her crossing of the English Channel, just four weeks after successfully swimming the Molokai channel swim in Hawaii. She documented her entire training and transition process in her blog: Pat’s Channel Swim.

Additionally, Gallant-Charette uploaded a highlight video of the crossing to her YouTube page:

According to the blog, many members of Gallant-Charette’s family were involved in swimming. Residents of Maine, they were no strangers to the annual Peaks to Portland Swim hosted by the YMCA of Southern Maine. Robbie Gallant, Pat’s younger brother, won the 2.4 mile swim twice before suffering from a fatal heart attack in 1999 at the age of 34.

Her son, Tom, was a member of the Westbrook High School at the time, and wanted to train for the race in honor of his uncle. Gallant-Charette expressed how this was a great idea where she wished she could join him. His response? “You can if you try.”

This became Gallant-Charette’s motto throughout her training for the swim, and she was able to qualify and complete the race successfully. This encouraged her to try other, longer races. She has completed a double crossing of Maine’s Big Sebago Lake (12 miles), the Great Chesapeake Bay swim (4.4 miles) and the Strait of Gibraltar swim (9 miles).

She then set the U.S. Women’s record for the fastest swim from Spain to Africa (the Strait of Gibraltar) in 3 hours and 28 minutes in 2010. This was also the fastest time by any man or woman over the age of 50.

She completed her first English Channel crossing at the age of 60 in 2011, and finished in 15 hours and 57 minutes. Between then and now, she has finished many other historic races including the Catalina Channel and Japan’s Tsugaru Strait. But last year, she made another attempt at the English Channel and did not succeed.

After looking for another re-opening, she was told there were not any available spots for her. She then signed up for the Molokai swim, but quickly gained notice of an English Channel opening. Knowing she could recover in time, Gallant-Charette said the biggest challenge was acclimating to the cold water after training in warm water for the Hawaiian swim.

With Tom monitoring her, she set out for the swim in 54 degree water. Throughout the race, she experienced vomiting, dehydration, doubt and strong currents that made her take 3 hours to complete the last mile of the race.

“By the 12th hour, I could see France,” she said in her blog. “My doubts went away. I started thinking of swimmers who inspired me to never give up: Jackie Cobell who set a world record for the longest time of 28 hours to swim the channel. I thought of swimming legend Sal Minty-Gravett and her epic world record of a two way crossing of the English Channel. I didn’t want to quit even though I was very uncomfortable from the cold water.”

She noted that her mantra, you can if you try, also helped her get through the race, especially since Tom was on the boat for 18 hours paying specific attention to her behavior and surroundings.

The previous record-holder, Sue Oldham of Australia who was 64 years old, also contacted Pat’s daughter during the swim. Tom was able to use Oldham’s encouraging words to help his mother push through the race.

You might think that a comeback accomplishment like this one would satisfy one of the greatest open water swimmers of all time, but Gallant-Charette has other plans.

“My last marathon swim to complete the Oceans Seven will be Cook Strait in New Zealand in 2019,” she said. “Due to popularity of this swim, there is a long waiting list. But in the meantime, I will continue marathon swimming in other locations.”

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