Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World

by Glenn Stout

  In the years following Webb's crossing, as one swimmer after another tried and failed to swim the Channel, those who pondered crossing the Channel would often spend as much time studying the tides and the currents as they would in training. But even the tides alone do not tell the entire story. In the same way that the waters of a river, when encountering shallows, can increase in speed and change direction, so too does the depth of the Channel waters impact the current in the ebb and flow of the tides, for as the depth of the water changes, so does the speed of the currents. Due to those two primordial floods in the Strait of Dover, the depth of the Channel varies wildly, from more than 120 feet in places to less than 6 feet in others. Around the Goodwin Sands, a ten-mile-long sandbank just northeast of Dover, the water is dangerously shallow, and a combination of storms and tides can make the waters around and over the sands surprisingly swift and uncertain. The Goodwin Sands, in fact, is even exposed at low tide, a condition that can create dangerous eddies and rough water in otherwise calm seas. The area is such a hazard that more than two thousand ships are known to have met their fate there. Even today an anchored vessel that serves as a lighthouse—a lightship—is permanently stationed atop the massive sandbank, yet ships still run aground with frightening regularity.

  As if all this did not combine to make the crossing difficult enough, the weather adds another uncomfortable dimension. The clash of the waters often results in fog, a year-round hazard, one that not only can make the experience of swimming the Channel psychologically difficult, making it impossible for a swimmer to detect his or her own progress, but dangerous as well. The fog can be so dense that the accompanying pilot boats can and have lost sight of swimmers entirely, sometimes for hours, turning an already risky proposition into a potentially deadly one. Not only is it possible for a "lost" swimmer to drown, but due to the amount of boat traffic in the Channel, without the aid of a pilot boat a swimmer risks being run down by a passing vessel oblivious to the swimmer's presence.

  Then there are the storms. Fronts moving in from the North Atlantic and funneled through the Channel can create winds that can reach hurricane force and waves that regularly reach two meters and occasionally much, much more. With every increase in wave action swimmers must struggle to breathe without swallowing seawater, which can cause nausea, while the constant rising and falling with each swell can make swimmers seasick. In short, crossing the Channel requires not only conditioning, physical fitness, and a measure of luck, but an experienced boat pilot and a complete and thorough understanding of the Channel itself.

  For these reasons most attempts to swim the Channel have taken place during what early swimmers referred to as the "mystic season," August and September. Then, for two brief periods of three days each, the neap tides are at their weakest and the water temperature its warmest. If the weather cooperates, a virtually impossible task becomes only a nearly impossible one. For some swimmers that slender chance of success has made swimming the Channel completely irresistible.

  Soon after Matthew Webb staggered onto the shore in Calais in August 1875, other swimmers began lining up for their chance at glory, for Webb's crossing made him wealthy, a fact that did not go un noticed. In the weeks immediately after the crossing Webb made nearly fifty thousand dollars—the Prince of Wales alone gave him an award of twenty-five thousand dollars in honor of his accomplishment. For the remainder of his life Webb earned upward of one thousand dollars per personal appearance, and for the swim that killed him in the Niagara River he was scheduled to make fifteen thousand dollars.

  Swimming the English Channel suddenly became the Victorian equivalent of winning the lottery. It had the potential of taking an otherwise normal bloke and, in less than twenty-four hours, not only making him famous, but rich. And Webb's success, in only his second try, made what had once seemed impossible not only plausible, but even likely.

  The first swimmer to follow Webb into the cold Channel waters was Frederick Cavill, the same Frederick Cavill who would later help develop the Australian crawl. Already a well-known swimmer and, like J. B. Johnson, a member of the Serpentine Club, Cavill prepared for his crossing by completing a twenty-mile swim in the Thames and afterward was confident that the Channel would prove to be little more difficult. But Cavill—and others—soon discovered that Webb had either been extraordinarily lucky or extraordinarily talented. It would take more than thirty years before another person would be able to duplicate Webb's accomplishment.

  Cavill made his first attempt in 1876 using the breaststroke but had to be pulled from the water, exhausted, three miles short of his goal. One year later he tried again and made it excruciatingly close—220 meters—before collapsing from the effort and requiring assistance to get out of the water. Although the Serpentine Club recognized his crossing, no one else did—then, as now, swimming the Channel does not mean stopping 220 meters short. Cavill tried to claim success but tired of defending himself in the public eye and eventually immigrated to Australia, opened a pool, and became known as the father of Australian swimming.

  Over the next twenty-five years at least a dozen other swimmers made a serious attempt at duplicating Webb's feat. Yet no matter how hard they trained or how prepared they appeared to be, none succeeded. In almost every instance the tides conspired to defeat them, often teasing them to within sight of their goal and then, with solid ground and glory reaching out a hand, stopping them cold, slapping them back, and even pushing the swimmers away from shore toward where they had first started. To many Channel swimmers the tides have proven to be a barrier nearly as impenetrable as the thick stone walls of Dover Castle.

  Most swimmers who tried to swim the Channel in the first few decades following Webb's crossing followed his course, leaving from England and swimming toward France, but as more and more swimmers tried and failed to make a successful crossing, swimmers began to look the other direction, some leaving from France and heading toward England. The problem with the former course is that a swimmer leaving from England often takes aim on Cape Gris-Nez, the nearest point to England but a relatively small target jutting out into the Channel. But if a swimmer and the captain of the pilot boat miscalculate the tidal shifts and current as they near the French shore, it is entirely possible to sweep completely past Gris-Nez and then face certain failure. Swimming from France to England, while offering a wider landing area, also makes it necessary to time the swim with the tides so that the swimmer doesn't get hung up on the Goodwin Sands, just east of Dover, or swept along parallel to the coast.

  Yet even when the weather and tidal conditions are the most favorable—even today—failure is far more common than success. Swimming the English Channel remains a challenge even for the most fit and committed swimmer.

  In fact in the first few decades after Webb's crossing, as swimmer after swimmer tried and failed to match his accomplishment, many began to doubt that anyone had ever swum the Channel at all, or ever could. Some even began to think that Webb was a fraud who somehow had faked his deed. To quell such rumors, surviving witnesses aboard Webb's pilot boat eventually made sworn depositions attesting to his feat.

  With every passing year, as newspapers and various patrons offered cash prizes and other incentives to the first man to match Webb, the stature of the quest only increased. While some swimmers tried once, failed, and then left the Channel experience behind as a memory they cared not to revisit, to others swimming the Channel became something of an obsession.

  Of all the swimmers who tried to duplicate Webb's feat, none were more committed and determined than Jabez Wolffe and Thomas William Burgess. Like Matthew Webb, Wolffe and Burgess each looked across the Strait of Dover and saw not only a personal challenge, but a way toward fame and fortune waiting on the other side.

  9. The Best Girl

  IT WAS RAINING.

  Just before 2:00 on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 1, 1922, what local newspapers still referred to as fifty-two "mermaids" assembled near the shoreline at Manhattan Beach, a resort comm
unity on the eastern edge of Coney Island, the southernmost point of the borough of Brooklyn. Dressed in competition swimwear consisting of one-piece, form-fitting, woolen "athletic tank suits," which began just above the knee and extended over the shoulders, and holding bathing caps, the young women, mostly in their teens and early twenties, huddled together in bunches beneath umbrellas, trying, for the time being, to stay dry.

  Although it was midsummer, the weather along the shore was not cooperating. A storm system had stalled just off the coast. The forecast called for thunderstorms inland, but along the shore a brisk wind spinning in from the northeast delivered a steady, driving rain. The air temperature barely reached seventy degrees. The breeze raised a few whitecaps in the channel between Coney Island and the Rockaways, and the air smelled of the sea. On most such summer days, the beach normally would have been all but empty but for a few hardy vacationers determined to be outside. Some might have chosen to duck in and out of the attractions along the boardwalk at Coney Island, or else have a relaxing lunch at one of the nearby re-sort hotels and watch the surf.

  But today a crowd of several hundred men, women, and children braved the rain and stood beneath umbrellas on the beach. Many in the crowd were friends and family of the young "mermaids," but a fair number—mostly men—had no personal connection to the young ladies at all. Many had come to Manhattan Beach just to see what all the fuss was about.

  For much of the past month New Yorkers who were close readers of the Tribune had had their curiosity piqued by a series of stories touting what the newspaper referred to as the "international women's long distance swimming championship," a three and half mile open-water swimming race for women, sponsored by the newspaper and Joseph P. Day, a wealthy New York real estate developer. The first such race had been held ten years before, in 1912, and was sponsored by the Women's Life-Saving League. Apart from a hiatus during World War I, the competition had been held annually ever since but generally had drawn little attention.

  In the four years since Trudy Ederle and her sisters joined the WSA, much had changed. The success of the American women swimmers at the 1920 Olympic Games had provided the sport of women's swimming with a beachhead. Although women's swimming was hardly a popular spectator sport, in the wake of the Olympics even critics of female athletics had come to accept the reality that women were going to swim and compete. In 1921 the annual long-distance race even acquired a sponsor, the Brighton Beach Baths, a nearby private club that Day himself had rebuilt after the original Baths burned. That race had been won by Thelda Bleibtrey, winner of three gold medals in swimming at the 1920 Olympics. Bleibtrey, an attractive blonde, had drawn significant press attention to the event, not just for her appearance, but because the press loved repeating her inspirational story about taking up swimming and joining the WSA as therapy for curvature of the spine. Her participation in the race had drawn a surprisingly large crowd to the long-distance swim. Indeed, soon after her victory she announced that she intended to become a professional and left the ranks of amateur swimming. She worked as an instructor, purchased Annette Kellerman's indoor swimming tank, and created a vaudeville act—and even got the attention of the motion picture industry, which gave her a screen test.

  Joseph P. Day duly noted the size of the crowd in 1921 and, in 1922, took over personal sponsorship of the event, awarding a trophy known as the Day Cup to the best team of swimmers to complete the course. The developer had recently completed a 114-home development on Manhattan Beach. He had extensive plans for more such developments in the surrounding area and wanted to draw attention both to his properties and the surrounding community. All summer long the Businessman's League in nearby Atlantic City, New Jersey, had been touting its Fall Frolic, a five-day celebration that would take place in September and culminate in a bathing beauty contest, the winner of which would be dubbed "Miss America." So far the ploy had resulted in plenty of publicity for Atlantic City, even before the contest. Day likely drew some inspiration from this event and concluded that the presence of four dozen young beauties in swimwear at Manhattan Beach would prove to be a sure-fire attraction.

  He was right. Most of the crowd in Manhattan Beach had not assembled due to their deep love of the sport of swimming. Apart from friends and family members of the swimmers, the attraction for many was, to be blunt, still the girls themselves. Only in the last few years had it finally become acceptable for a woman to wear a bathing suit that was even remotely practical, or exposed any flesh whatsoever, and then only if she was swimming in an athletic competition. At the very least, most "respectable" women still wore tank suits that extended to the knee and kept their woolen stockings pulled up high, leaving only the face and arms exposed, and many still wore the cumbersome and even dangerous suits that consisted of long-sleeved heavy wool blouses, long flowing skirts, and stockings.

  But the "mermaids" participating in swimming competitions held to a more relaxed standard. They were allowed to swim bare legged and wear tank suits that were somewhat more comfortable and revealing than those worn for simple recreation. The athletic tank suit was often made from a lighter woolen knit, fit the body closer, and stopped at midthigh.

  Nowhere else, not even on the stage, were women allowed to wear such revealing outfits. Although the era of the flapper was beginning, skirts had yet to rise above the knee. Indeed, even modest tank suits were still legally banned from being worn at many public beaches, and women who entered the water wearing anything less than the standard swimming skirt and blouse still risked arrest. Each summer in and around New York, several women were arrested for doing just that. In fact in 1919 two WSA swimmers, Thelda Bleibtrey and Charlotte Boyle, had been arrested not only for wearing the still-risque tank suit at a public beach, but for removing their stockings.

  The WSA recognized the controversy and, in an attempt to deflect criticism, made certain that the suits worn by its members were plain and dully colored, unadorned by any decoration apart from the WSA emblem on the front of each suit. Furthermore, each member of the group had to adhere to a strict moral code and strict standards of behavior and were always chaperoned at WSA events. The only place WSA swimmers were allowed to be "fast" was in the water.

  The curious among the crowd that gathered along the beach or in pleasure boats just offshore were not held to the same moral standards. The binoculars and opera glasses carried by some of the many men in the crowd were not intended to be used to examine the swimming styles of the participants as much as they were to examine the stylish participants themselves.

  One after another, long wooden rowboats meant for ocean travel, known as dories, were pushed into the water, each one manned by an oarsman and a pilot and carrying a swimmer. Eventually more than four dozen such boats, one for each competitor, were all headed southeast, across Rockaway Inlet, toward a destination just off Riche's Point. As the dories pulled away from shore, dozens of pleasure boats anchored offshore set sail after them.

  Few spectators even knew the names of many of the swimmers, and if they did, it was only because of a series of prerace stories in the Tribune and other New York newspapers. Most stories tried to drum up interest in the race by touting the swimming achievements of the favorites—and reprinting their photographs.

  The main attraction was seventeen-year-old Hilda James of England. The Liverpool native, widely acknowledged as Europe's greatest woman swimmer, had been a medalist at the 1920 Olympics and was the world record holder in both the 300- and 440-yard swims. It didn't hurt that in the photographs in the newspapers James appeared to be quite attractive. Even though the newspapers published only a head shot of the young swimmer, that was enough to tantalize male readers into showing up to see the rest of her in person. Like most swimmers of the era, James wore her hair in a kind of bob, the hairstyle currently favored in the motion picture industry. With a bit of imagination it was possible to look at a photograph of James and see a bit of film star Mary Pickford in her features.

  The press touted the race as
a showdown between James and her American Olympian counterparts, Helen Wainwright, Aileen Riggin, and a precocious young teammate, fourteen-year-old sensation Ethel McGary, who had recently set the American 300-yard record. Yet while the four swimmers were, in fact, among the most accomplished of the era, in truth the main attraction to the event was as much due to young womanhood on display as it was to competition.

  It was a forgone conclusion that a team from the WSA would win the coveted Cup. Wainwright, Riggin, and McGary made up the first of two, three-girl teams representing the club in Cup competition, but thirty-three of the remaining forty-seven swimmers competing as individuals wore suits bearing the "WSA" emblem on their chests.

  After a good thirty minutes of hard pulling, for each dory was running against the changing tide, each boat slowed as it approached Riche's Point, where a tug waited. On board were Joseph P. Day himself, several newspaper reporters, and assorted race officials, including Epstein and Louis de Breda Handley. As the dories pulled up alongside the boat, Epstein checked off each swimmer, making certain that all fifty-two entrants were at the start. It then took another twenty or thirty minutes to assemble the boats in something approaching order, stretched in a line across nearly a quarter mile of open ocean, facing northward toward Point Breeze, parallel with the far shore.

  The rain and accompanying wind and chop made keeping the dories in place something of a challenge, but they were an absolute necessity in such a race. Many of the swimmers had never before competed in a race of more than five hundred yards, and even then they had done so only in the protected confines of a pool. This race was something else entirely, an open-ocean course of three and a half miles. The swimmers would be subjected to the tides and currents and whatever other surprises the water might hold. For safety reasons, each swimmer would be trailed by a dory. Not only would the pilot of the boat shout instructions and help keep each swimmer on course, but at the first sign of trouble he could pluck the swimmer from the water.