Ridgewood teen’s record-setting swim has family and classmates cheering
SEPTEMBER 8, 2014, 5:11 PM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2014, 10:49 PM
BY STEPHANIE AKIN AND CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD
In a matter of hours, she would make history by becoming the youngest person ever to achieve the Triple Crown of open-water swimming — completing a swim across the English Channel after circumnavigating Manhattan in June and swimming the Catalina Channel off the coast of California in August.
But as Charlotte Samuels, a 16-year-old from Ridgewood, crept through choppy, frigid water Monday afternoon, that goal seemed impossibly distant. She could see the French coastline. But the land didn’t seem to be getting any closer, she shouted to her mother, Suzanne, who was cheering her on from a tracking boat.
The team on the boat began reading her messages from supporters, Suzanne said in an email. A message from her swimming coach told her to “Keep her head down and keep swimming.”
Related: Ridgewood teen becomes youngest to complete Triple Crown swimming attempt
And so she did.
She sang songs in her head. She thought, at times, that she was sleeping. And she faced swells of 4 to 6 feet that forced her to sprint the last two miles, her mother said.
By the time Charlotte scrambled onto the beach on the French shore around 5 p.m. (11 a.m. New Jersey time), all that seemed like it might have been a dream, she told her mother later. Not only had she reached her goal, she had done all three swims in just over two months, perhaps the shortest span that anyone had ever completed the swimming trifecta, Suzanne said.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/ridgewood-teen-s-record-setting-swim-has-family-and-classmates-cheering-1.1083476#sthash.4mIjLGmR.dpuf