47th ANNIVERSARY PORTHCAWL CHRISTMAS MORNING SWIM

In contrast to last years snow on the beach the brave swimmers at Porthcawl’s 47th Christmas Morning Swim today had comparatively spring like weather.

With one of the larger tides of the year and the tide at low water, more than 900 swimmers walked and ran almost a quarter of a mile down the beach to get to the sea and took the traditional Christmas morning dip at Sandy Bay Porthcawl whilst an estimated 2000 to 3000 spectators cheered them on.

With a crowded beach Porthcawl Coastguards signaled the start and cleared a path down the beach for the swimmers. Many were in fancy dress as they walked through a couple of thousand spectators from the Hi-Tide Inn to the sea at 11.45am. The procession of swimmers of all ages, male and female, were led from the Hi-Tide Inn to the beach by Victor Davies and Chris Hughes each with 45 plus swims to their name. Spectators gave their full support by applauding all those taking part in this the 47th annual event. Swimmers from all over the UK took part, amongst our regular entrants’ veteran swimmer Ken James of Ogmore Vale, Bridgend, claimed to be the oldest entrant at 85 and 33 previous Christmas swims to his credit. At the other end of the age spectrum there were many young children and their parents taking part.

Amongst today’s swimmers were four male visitors from Australia who were guests of Chris Parry of Bridgend; Chris said, “I thought that they would appreciate the conditions here, I think they felt homesick when I reminded them that they could have been enjoying a totally different swim in the Australian summer heat”. The swim is a truly family event with many different generations of the same family taking to the sea and many in fancy dress. Collections are made during carol singing and during the swim itself.

A spokes person from the swim Committee, Ian Stroud, said, “Once again we have been grateful to all who supported our swim and the number of people that turned up was fantastic. I was concerned that with the tide being so far out, actually in line with the break water, that this would deter some swimmers from taking the long walk to the sea. The number of swimmers today though has disproved my earlier thoughts. We hope the bucket collections and swimmers sponsorship this year will help us to make some generous donations in the New Year to the Swim’s beneficiaries. Our main beneficiary this year will be the Wales Air Ambulance”.

Chairman, Nicola Willis commented

“As a small committee we are delighted the way we have been supported once again this year, I would like to thank all swimmers, spectators, individuals, businesses and organisations who help in so many ways to make the swim such a successful event in the towns calendar. To have such a crowded beach, at this time of the year goes to prove that some of our departed founder swimmers were looking down on us and provided us with good weather for a swim that saw more people in the water than most summer bank holidays”.