Marathon swim abandoned

Press, 12 January 1981, Page 17

Marathon swim abandoned

AAP Sydney The marathon swimmer Des Renford, aged 53, is not giving up in spite of a setback which forced him to abandon his attempt to swim from Newcastle to Sydney yesterday. Renford had to end his b'.d for the world’s longest unassisted ocean swim of 84 nautical miles when his shark cage sank. He was halfway down the central New South Wales coast when 5m waves off Tuggerah sunk his protective cage. Although bitterly disappointed, Renford said he had been swimming strongly at the time and had been confident of reaching Sydney in less than 26 hours. Renford, who has swum the English Channel 19 times, said that he was determined to have another crack at the Newcastle to Sydney marathon but it could take two or three months before he was ready for it. He said that some of the floats on the shark cage had broken away after heavy pounding and it had sunk just after I a.m. “1 was swimming "4 strokes a minute, well within my own capabilities, and I felt sure that 1 was going to get there in at least 25 hours and at the very outside, 26 hours," he said.