MORE SEAS TO CONQUER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16839, 31 December 1928, Page 12

MORE SEAS TO CONQUER

MISS MERCEDES GLEITZE PLUCKY ENGLISH SWIMMER COMING TO NEW ZEALAND. LONDON, November 15. New Zealand is to have a visit from Miss Mercedes Gleitze, the London typist, who has come into world prominence for her pluck and endurance as a long-distance swimmer. She is going out by the Corinthic on December 7, and is once more in strict training to make herself lit for her next sea to conquer. Miss Gleitze wants to attempt to swim Cook Strait. She says she is tired of bathing in cold water, and she longs to try what she hopes will be warmer conditions of New Zealand’s sea. Also she says she has heard so much about the Maoris that she longs to see them. What she has been told of the Dominion inspires her with enthusiasm to go out. She was born in Brighton and learned io swim when 10 years old. She was educated at the East Hoe Higher Grade School, and came to London eight years ago. She has never been keen to attain swimming speed records, her interest being in the long-distance events. In the summer of 1922 Miss Gleitze made her first attempt to conquer the English Channel, and she tried on eight occasions before she attained her ambition. She claimed to have succeeded on October 7, 1928, but as the swim was not officially attested, and some doubt was cast on her Channel performance by Dr. Dorothy Logan’s confession as to her own Channel swim hoax, Miss Gleitze made another trial in icy water on October 22. The accompanying boat was manned by pressmen and official witnesses. After swimming for over 10 hours she was taken out of the water exhausted when a little over five miles from Dover.

REWARD OF PERSEVERANCE. Miss Gleitze then proceeded to Gibraltar, with the intention of swimming the Straits, a feat never before accomplished. She had a competitor in the person of Miss Nellie Hudson, another typist, and the two swimmers left England in the same steamer. Miss Hudson however, failed to achieve the feat, and returned home.

Miss Gleitze’s first effort was made from Tangier on December 16, 1927, but she gave up when half-way across. On January 2, 1928, she got to within a mile of Tarifa, but was overcome by the cold. On January 26 she was nearly drowned on her third attempt, being caugfit in a whirlpool. Other unsuccessful attempts were made oil March 12, and on April 3, the latter effort being from Tarifa; she gave up when about a mile from the Moorish coast. But victory came on April 6. She started from Tarifa, the most southerly point of Spain, and arrived at Puuta Leona, on the coast of Morocco* after swimming 12h. 45m. “I entered the water at 7.55 a.m. on the morning of April 5,” she said, after she landed. “After 15 minutes I almost decided to return owing to the rough sea and unfavorable tide, 1 swam on, liowevei, and, the tide becoming gradually more favorable, I began to make good progress. The water continued rough. During the last four and a-half hours of the swim it was raining all the time. “Two fishing smacks carried about 60 Spanish witnesses. Feeling very fit, l swam steadily, being carried up and down the Straits until I landed at a deserted spot on the Moroccan ■ const after a 12ij hours’ swim. In the middle of the Straits it was very rough, owing to a freshening wind, but I struggled through, using the breaststroke. I was ravenously hungry the whole of the time.

AUTHENTICITY OF THE SWIM. “There is no doubt about the authenticity of my swim. Sixty or 70 people would not lie about it. None but the malicious-minded can question it. A fuller affidavit, signed by a largo number of Witnesses, who are being sworn, will be forwarded to me. These signatures will include Dr. Benigio Espinosa, my medical attendant, Professor Mora Roja, and eight others who were in the rowing boat. There was ho Englishman aboard, except Mr. 'Henry Solis, who is the son of a retired Britisher. ”

Armed with a jagged fragment of rock from Morocco and a handful of Moroccan sand, Miss Gleitze returned to Tarifa by boat. She was greeted with the strains of “God Save the King,” from a band, and by cheering crowds. Apparently the actual distance swum was 24 miles, although by direct line it is. only nine miles. During the past summer Miss Gleitze was at Blackpool taking part in swimming carnivals, and then she went to Ireland, hoping to conquer the Irish Channel But after four attempts she decided to give up because of the intensely cold water. "I just long to feel some wanner water in New Zealand,” she said, “far removed from ice-floes from the North Pole,”