I was in bits watching this. At the time I likened it to a first time father at the birth. You see the person you love exhausted and in extreme pain and there is nothing you can do to make it easier. I had to be strong for him but when he swam off from the boat I just wanted to cry. We could see the French coast but getting into shore was a long battle. by 15 hours he was completely spent. I'm sure simply breathing out was giving him more forward propulsion than anything he was doing with his arms. We likened it to a doggy paddle but in reality is was more poodle paddle than great dane. Only guts and determination would get him to France now.
By now we were in only 2 meters of water but progress was painfully slow. The support swimmer got back into with him for the final push to shore. It was horrendous. It took 3 hours 42 minutes to cover less than a mile but eventually after 15 hours 42 minutes in the water, Niall climbed up a French beach.
When you are that cold and tired, your brain function slows completely. All he could focus on was "clear the water line". If you don't clear the water, you are disqualified. He kept crawling up the dunes and had to be called back repeatedly. I was bawling on the boat and the independent observer had to come and give me a hug to stop me crying. The final indignity is having to swim back out to the boat! Having said that, Dave and his crew did manouver the boat into water only 1 meter deep - no mean feat in waters that contained WW2 wrecks!
Once on board, we had to get Niall dry and warm. hypothermia is scary the first time you see it. His extremities were blue, he couldn't talk or stand and couldn't understand what we were saying to him. Eventually he started to shiver violently and went gray, which is actually a good sign (he was also violently sick but at that stage he didn't need any more energy so we were happy enough to let him puke). By the time we got back to Dover he was looking much better but still very cold.
I've never had much interest in swimming the channel. Hypothermia doesn't appeal to me. It's a lonely day out there. Crewing it has completely put me off the idea. It's a terrible mental ride from England to France. Give me hard physical pain over that kind of mental anguish any day. Niall has received many messages of congratulations on this huge achievement, but was quickly brought back down to earth by his 12 year old son who reminded him that swimming the English Channel is equivalent of only 2000 laps of the local pool - simple!
After the swim, as Niall warmed up and was able to talk, one of the first things he said was "Do you know, only 3 people have both swum the channel and climbed Everest". I'm not laying money against that being his next challenge!
