A Gallant Failure

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29745, 12 February 1962, Page 10

A Gallant Failure

For his gallant failure to cross Cook Strait the Wellington swimmer, W. O. Penny, is unlikely to be consoled by the knowledge that such narrow reverses are in the best traditions of endurance swimming. When he attempted the English Channel soon after the First World War, Lord Freyberg was defeated by similar factors to those that prevented Penny from reaching the South Island on Saturday. Penny’s feat was important because it demonstrated that, in favourable conditions, Cook Strait can be swum, and that what Europeans hitherto had regarded as Maori legends may be facts. Until it was swum by an Englishman, Captain Matthew Webb, in 1875, the

English Channel probably appeared as formidable a test of human stamina as Cook Strait has seemed to New Zealanders. During the present century, however, Channel swims have become almost commonplace; for instance, on August 16, 1951, 12 men and six women swam from France to England. Although Cook Strait is much narrower than the English Channel, the ruggedness of the Dominion’s coastline and the vagaries of its tides and weather must deter all but the most adventurous and experienced long-distance swimmers. It is to be hoped that Penny soon has an opportunity to achieve the distinction denied him on Saturday.