Torbay Tri Club does not have any open water coaching as it proved too difficult, or costly, to provide the safety cover that would be required to make this feasible without charging a lot for the privilege.
What we do do though, is to facilitate a ‘wild swim’ every Wednesday evening at the slipway adjacent to Cantina in Young’s Park at Goodrington in Paignton.
We meet from about 5.45 onwards, and someone will look after your kit whilst you swim. This kit guarding usually ceases by 7.15 at the latest.
We have also installed 8 bright red buoys for you to swim around. They have been arranged in a parallelogram formation so that you have the option to swim between buoys in any direction, rather than just north/south and east/west. The entire circuit is about 400/450m but, depending on the state of the tide, to get to and from the circuit will add on more distance.
These buoys will be there all year around and provide a much safer area than swimming out to the council’s 5 knot buoys.
After these wild swims, there is always free cake. A number of our members pride themselves in their baking ability, and there is always enough to go around. At the end of the season, there is a ‘Cake Off’ competition hosted by Cantina, whereby the best cakes on the evening are blind judged by their chef, and the club’s Master Baker is announced. If you want to see what previous entries look like, follow the link to ‘Cake Club’.
As this is a ‘wild swim’, everybody is welcome to come down. Generally about 60% are club members, and 40% are people who enjoy freezing their bits off and eating cake. Remember, this IS NOT a club session. There is no insurance in place, and you take part at your own risk.
