MADE GOOD0.0kmSWUM0.0kmELAPSED0:00CLOCK03:12SEAForce 2
Slack0.0 kn
DRIFT+0.0 km
STATION4.0 m
← → to hold the boat's lee
ENERGY100%
On for Gris-Nez
Hold 124 W33.8 km to go
THE STRAIT
TURBO CHANNEL SWIM
Dover to Cap Gris-Nez. 33.8 km on a bearing of 140°, across a tide that runs 035/215 — near enough square to your course. The tide will never carry you towards France. It will only slide you along the French coast while you swim. Get there before it turns.
Launching the boat…
The tide on the day
Sensors
Smart trainer or power meterNot connected
Heart rate strapNot connected
Speed / cadence sensorOptional, for dumb trainers
The swimmer
Holding about 62% of your FTP swims at the pace of an average successful crossing — roughly 3.2 km/h. Speed goes up with the square root of your watts, the way it does in water, so doubling your power nowhere near doubles your speed. This is a pacing swim, not a sprint.
How a Channel swim works
The tide is square to your course. It cannot push you to France and it cannot hold you back. It slides you north-east on the flood and south-west on the ebb, and it is faster than you are.
Cap Gris-Nez is a point, not a coast. Hit it and you are done. Drift more than about 2.6 km off it by the time you arrive and the cape is gone — the coast falls away north-east into Wissant Bay, so the distance left goes up.
The feeds are the trap. Every few minutes the crew swing the pole out. You have to ease off to take it, and while you bob the tide keeps working. Skip them and you empty the tank; take them slowly and you lose the cape.
The sea builds and eases. Force 3 is the transition to rough water and costs you real speed. Your pilot would not have let you start in a force 5.
Watch the chart. The dashed amber line is the course you are not on. The green line is where the tide is actually taking you.
No wetsuits, no touching the boat, and you have to clear the water at the far end. Those are the real rules.