Wrong-Way Swimmer

Gertrude Ederle, now 44, was the first woman to swim the English Channel, in 1926. Since then, a dozen women have followed in her wake from France to Britain. Last year a 31-year-old stenographer from San Diego named Florence Chadwick topped the Ederle record by swimming the distance in 13 hr. 20 min. (TIME, Aug. 21, 1950). But until last week no woman, and only nine men, had ever swum the Channel eastward from Dover to Cap Gris-Nez, the 21-mile stretch which, like a cat, hates to be stroked the wrong way.

For eleven weeks Florence Chadwick waited in Dover to try. In a little seaside hotel she fortified her 140 Ibs. on a starchy English diet, gobbled calorie-packed fudge and ice cream between meals, swam three or four hours every day. After an evening of gin rummy, she turned in promptly at 9:30. As the weeks wore on, with no slackening of the rough waters, Florence would stare gloomily out the window at the spiteful grey sea.

One night last week Florence and her father decided that there was no point in waiting any longer. In a soupy fog, with the tides unfavorable and the waves white-capped, Florence helped smear herself with chill-cutting grease, adjusted her suction-cupped goggles and waded into the black water off Dover. Three hours out, she was a very sick girl. Said father Chadwick: "She was vomiting every third stroke." Pills did not help, but finally one of her trainers spotted the jinx: fumes from a leaky gasoline line of an accompanying motorboat. Florence recovered as soon as the boat drew away. While her pilot boat almost lost her in the fog, Florence's father took one pill after another to ease the strain on his own weak heart. Finally, after 16 hr., 22 min., he got the best tonic of all (and a 69th birthday present): Florence felt the sand of France beneath her, dragged herself ashore at Sangatte, three miles south of Calais.

A few boys on the beach raced cheering to the spot. Soon tiny Sangatte's deputy mayor arrived and, in the confusion of tongues, thought he was welcoming Denmark's Elna Andersen, another Channel swimmer, who had not even started. But that night, back in the Dover hotel, everyone knew that Florence had become the first of her sex to make it the hard way. Gazing out the same window at the sea, Swimmer Chadwick announced: "I'm feeling fine."

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