Tag: Charlotte Samuels

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Ridgewood teen seeking record with swim across English Channel

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Ridgewood teen seeking record with swim across English Channel

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014, 1:19 PM    LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2014, 3:08 AM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG AND JIM NORMAN
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD

She spent the night alone with the water and the moon. Somewhere behind her in the darkness was a small boat, which carried food, and her parents, and a captain hired to keep her safe.

But nine hours into her swim across the English Channel, this is what 16-year-old Charlotte Samuels experienced as she lifted her mouth from the water to breathe:

Wind hitting her in the face at 8 miles an hour. Waves nearly a foot tall. The lights of the Nord de Calais, a 520-foot passenger ferry, passing at 20 miles an hour directly in her path.

And the water, always the cool salt water, pushing and tugging her in a zig-zagging S-curve across one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

If she crosses the Channel successfully, Charlotte won’t simply break a world record. She’ll shatter it. At 16 she hopes to become the youngest person ever to complete the Triple Crown of open water swimming, coming in two years younger than an 18-year-old Australian who broke the record just last month.

Click here to follow Charlotte’s swim in real time (via her guide boat Anastasia’s GPS) https://www.lovechannelswimming.com/swims


– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/update-ridgewood-teen-seeking-record-with-swim-across-english-channel-1.1082700#sthash.fOEx55Qy.dpuf

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Ridgewood teen plans to swim English Channel for Triple Crown today

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Charlotte Samuels begins her swim, which is now scheduled for 6 p.m. UK time – 1 p.m. in New Jersey

Ridgewood teen plans to swim English Channel for Triple Crown today

SEPTEMBER 6, 2014, 12:32 PM    LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2014, 2:29 AM
BY ALLISON PRIES
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

Charlotte Samuels, the 16-year-old Ridgewood girl who wants to be the youngest person to complete the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, will attempt the final leg on Sunday by swimming across the English Channel, her mother, Suzanne Samuels, said today.

Originally she planned to begin the 21-mile swim from England to France at 5 a.m. London time—midnight in New Jersey. But every swimmer in the Channel must be accompanied by a guide boat, and the boat assigned to Samuels was running late, pushing her start time back approximately four hours, said Suzanne Samuels, Charlotte’s mother. Her mother later said they rescheduled the swim for 6 p.m. in the UK – 1 p.m. in New Jersey.

“Delays of this sort are not unusual,” Samuels said, adding that the wait was caused by a British athlete attempting to swim across using the breaststroke. “Charlotte is understandably disappointed, as are we.  But at this point, the weather conditions seem to be favorable for her swim.”

Last month, exhausted by an arduous 20.2-mile swim from Catalina Island to the coast of California, Samuels said she would not attempt the English Channel crossing this year. 

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Ridgewood teen says California swim ‘very lonely’ and required another gear

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Catalina Channel Swimming Federation

Ridgewood teen says California swim ‘very lonely’ and required another gear

AUGUST 5, 2014, 8:26 PM    LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2014, 8:39 PM
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

She saw the sun going down, and worried she might be pulled from the water because she was out of glow sticks and would be invisible to her father and companions in nearby boats guiding her in inky darkness across the Catalina Channel. The previous night of swimming, she said, felt like a dream, and she experienced an emotion that she never before felt while in the water.

“It was very lonely,” she said.

Charlotte Samuels, a 16-year-old open-water swimmer from Ridgewood, said she found another gear near the end of her 20.2-mile swim from Catalina Island to the Southern California coast almost as if she was able to “turn on a switch.” Her legs quivering, she stumbled over rocks and onto the shore after spending 20 hours, 20 minutes and 44 seconds in the water, taking a giant step toward becoming the youngest person ever to swim what is known as the Triple Crown of open-water swimming. The youngest to date was 20 years old.

One day later, as she rested Tuesday at a California house rented by her parents, she reflected on her accomplishment during a telephone interview. She described some of the anguish she felt, the taunting California coast that was farther away than it looked, the unexpected three-foot swells and currents that pushed her off course, and her determination to swim through feelings of uncertainty and the sharp pain of jellyfish stings that felt like electric shocks to her face, arms and legs.

She said she was sore and “mentally” exhausted after completing a swim that took about eight hours longer than she anticipated, and has decided to put off the third leg of the Triple Crown, a 21-mile swim across the English Channel, until next year because “I want to rest.”

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/ridgewood-teen-says-california-swim-very-lonely-and-required-another-gear-1.1062642#sthash.xg73t2mF.dpuf

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Ridgewood teen ready for 20-mile open-water swim in California

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Ridgewood teen ready for 20-mile open-water swim in California

JULY 13, 2014, 5:00 PM    LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JULY 14, 2014, 8:06 AM
BY LINDA MOSS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

RIDGEWOOD — Charlotte Samuels, 16, has literally swum around Manhattan, around Cape May and from Battery Park to Sandy Hook. But her open-water event next month will be quite different from those races: She’ll have to contend with sharks and whales, and will start swimming at pitch-black midnight.

Samuels, who will be a junior at Ridgewood High School this fall, is going to the West Coast to swim the 20.2-mile Catalina Island Channel in California on Aug. 4. Earlier this year, she completed the long Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, a 28.5-mile course.

The brunette teenager is also hoping to get a slot to swim the English Channel this fall, 21 miles. The Manhattan Island, Catalina and English Channel are the “Triple Crown” of open-water events, Samuels said, and she’s aiming to conquer all three.

“If I do it in the next four years I’ll still be the youngest person to ever do it: The youngest person right now is 20,” Samuels said.

On Sunday, Samuels returned to her home in Ridgewood after spending several days at a swimming camp at West Point, N.Y. Open-water swimming is her passion, one she has pursued since she was 12 and her paternal grandfather, Herb Tanenhaus of Eureka, Calif., gave her a copy of “Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer” by Lynne Cox.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/ridgewood-teen-ready-for-20-mile-open-water-swim-in-california-1.1050649#sthash.PRbFTTrJ.dpuf