Success: Crossing Nantucket Sound, swimmers attain East Beach

Editor’s observe: Nine swimmers try to swim a relay throughout Nantucket Sound from Nantucket to Martha’s Vineyard after setting off early Tuesday morning. Reporter Hayley Duffy is offering updates from a ship following the swimmers.

NANTUCKET SOUND — Greg “Beefcake” Mason — certainly one of 9 swimmers in two relays — flew via the water in direction of East Beach to complete the 18-mile swim and reached Chappaquiddick at 3:21 pm on Tuesday. Allie Keefe, Josh Thomson, Noah Froh, and Andy Neuberger — different members of Mason’s relay who joined to finish the final leg — joined him on the seaside. And Doug McConnell and Jennifer Passafiume — members of the opposite relay — reached the shores shortly after, and we joined by relay teammates Jon Chatinover and Jason Snow.

The two groups — who reached the Island earlier than anticipated — ran up to one another and exchanged hugs. All concerned mentioned the situations couldn’t have been higher for the swim.

Led by McConnell, English Channel swimmer, open-ocean endurance athlete and seasonal Island resident, the swimmers had been trying to be the primary to finish the stretch on this route. It is McConnell’s fourth try; his earlier three lone swims had been thwarted by climate, tides and jellyfish.

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After 5 hours of swimming by Tuesday at midday, all 9 swimmers trying had spent no less than an hour within the open ocean. Chappaquiddick was of their view at the moment.

Navigators aboard boats close by have simply advised swimmers and their accompanying kayakers to go additional north so as to keep away from a rip present and being swept south as they go additional in Muskeget Channel.

All swimmers are carrying a shark-deterrent band, and former Chilmark choose board chair Jim Malkin is heading the safety-and-support boat to be careful for different marine site visitors.

The waters have remained comparatively calm, and the water temperature has been round 70 levels.

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McConnell is the co-founder of A Long Swim, a nonprofit that designs and manages open-water swimming occasions to lift funds to analysis amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. McConnell misplaced his father, Dr. David McConnell, and sister, Ellen, to the illness.

The summer time Island resident, who began open-water swimming in 2009 after years on the pool and a profitable profession on the University of Illinois swim staff, has crossed the English Channel, the Catalina Channel, swum from Molokai to Oahu in Hawaii, and circled Manhattan.