Bengal swimmer Sayani Das first Indian woman to cross North Channel
Times of India | 2 September 2024
KALNA: Bengal's open water swimmer, Sayani Das (26), became the first Indian woman to cross the North Channel in a 13 hour 22 minute feat of endurance. She dived into the North Channel from Donaghadee town in Northern Ireland on Aug 30 around 7.49 am following Irish Standard Time (IST). She covered 38km to finally reach her finish point at Portpatrickin Scotland.
This was the fifth open water channel swim that Sayani - who aims at completing the Oceans Seven challenge - had conquered so far.Devised in 2008 as the swimming equivalent of the Seven Summits mountaineering challenge, the Oceans Seven is a marathon swimming challenge comprising seven open water channel swims, comprising the North Channel, the Cook Strait, the Molokai, the English Channel, the Catalina, the Tsugaru Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar. Earlier, Sayani had completed the English Channel, Catalina, Molokai, and the Cook Strait challenges.
The North Channel attempt is considered to be one of the coldest swims in the world with average sea temperature remaining 13 °C. Aware of this, Sayani-a resident of Kalna in East Burdwan district-had been preparing for the plunge since 2022. "There is a huge difference between the temperature of water bodies in India and the North Channel. Therefore, I used to dunk myself into a plastic drum, filled with 20 to 30 kg of ice - which my father would bring from a nearby ice-cream factory - and stay put inside it for about an hour each day for at least two months. This ice-bath was part of my training at home," said Sayani, adding each time she stretched out for a stroke, bringing the opposite shoulder out of the water into the icy wind, it felt like 'death by a thousand cuts.'
Swimmers in the North Channel also face threats from sharks and venomous box jellyfish that have tentacles loaded with poison, enough to kill a person or trigger a cardiac arrest.
An observer from the North Channel Swimming Association, Pam Ella, was assigned to ensure that Sayani follows the rules of the challenge. "The rules aren't very different from what it is for other channels. But, you are not allowed to touch a boat or a kayak, floating by your side, even while feeding," she explained. Sayani had entered the water from a pilot vessel and swam to the shoreline, where her touch point was a rock.
Born in a middle-class family, she was deprived of facilities and privileges, usually made available to elite swimmers. "I would take her to ponds in our town and to the Bhagirathi river for her regular practice. Her first victory came when she was 7 as she covered 10km in Ganga river, from Hooghly's Mayurpankhi Ghat to Chandannagore's Strand Ghat," said her father-cum-coach, Radhyashyam Das, also a former primary school headmaster.
Prior to Sayani, swimmers Elvis Ali Hazarika of Assam and Bengal's Rimo Saha had crossed North Channel as a relay team. Last year, Navi Mumbai's Anshuman Jhingran, became the youngest swimmer in the world to cross the channel.