It didn't go swimmingly :(

[Dog Biscuit]

Two men missing after coastguard called in to help Christmas day swimmers out of trouble

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g41v0dekgo

[towser44]

I can't believe they went out swimming in all honesty. Several along the coast were cancelled yesterday so they knew the conditions were poor :-(

[Dog Biscuit]

Well I agree tbh

The video in the link certtainly shows the sea looking a bit choppy

Madness, yet very sad indeed.

[Downward]

“The sea is a cruel mistress and must be respected, I won’t lie”

[21TonyK]

Given there were warnings on the local news all morning and most organised events were cancelled I can only assume herd mentality took over. One person goes in and hundreds follow because "it must be okay, everyones doing it". Suddenly you have a major incident on your hands.

Round my way two women decided to go for their "sea swim", in this...

[butchstewie]

towser44 said:

I can't believe they went out swimming in all honesty. Several along the coast were cancelled yesterday so they knew the conditions were poor :-(

Sadly as terrible as this obviously is it's also one of those cases of "what were you thinking". I don't know what would possess someone to go into water that looked like what I've seen in reports.

[Piginapoke]

A clear case of FAFO sadly

[CountyLines]

And tied up massive amounts of the various emergency services as well.

fking idiots.

[Blue62]

butchstewie said:

Sadly as terrible as this obviously is it's also one of those cases of "what were you thinking". I don't know what would possess someone to go into water that looked like what I've seen in reports.

There were plenty of warnings the day before but people still flocked to the beaches. Coastguards and life boats from Beer and Exmouth, spotter planes and emergency services all dragged out for something that was completely avoidable.

[swanny71]

We were in Exmouth for Christmas with in-laws yesterday - the sea state, wind and wind chill were horrible. Saw the coast guard helicopter mid morning and kinda expected the worse.

Might sound harsh but anyone going for a swim in those conditions was an idiot, no excuses because there were plenty of warnings not to go in the sea.

[mcelliott]

I sea swim every day, but looking at those conditions I would not have gone near the water, things can go tits up very quickly if you are not familiar with the conditions, I dragged a woman out a few years ago because she got trapped in a rip tide.

[swisstoni]

Apart from the families who are now missing members completely unnecessarily, I feel sorry for the emergency services dragged into this nonsense at I time they might have hoped things to be a bit quiet.

[borcy]

Some people feel they have to take on certain challenges regardless of warning or consequences. They certainly aren't interested in the cost of call outs etc.

[DeejRC]

We have a reasonably obscure thread down in the Sports forum for sea and outdoor swimming. I regularly post pics of my local - Bude lido, usually when calm and sunny, but sometimes of heavy seas with it coming over and I’ve been in.
We were down at Bude yesterday for the Santa swim and it was easily the busiest day of the year. The huge advantage we have is the easy ingress and egress sandy shallow sloping beach.
We know Budleigh Salterton quite well and the beach there is horrible. It’s full pebbles with ingress and egress being absolutely horrible, steep, pebbles n stones all the way down and no long flat sandy aspects. Just around the corner at Exmouth you have much sandier conditions. What non locals don’t quite realise is that Exmouth actually has a huge and one of the main surf and life saving clubs. As does Bude and these Santa swims are usually organised, run and marshalled by the surf and life saving clubs. As the Exmouth Santa swim was called off it is highly silly the Budleigh swim happened

For reference, this is Bude yesterday. The field car park was completely full and that is the over spill from the main Crooklets car park that was chocka.

[jmn]

I do know that particular stretch of coastline.

There is, to locals, a well known riptide on that beach. It would be bad enough to be caught in it during the warm Summer Months.

Very unwise to risk it in Winter.

[g4ry13]

I personally don't see the appeal of plunging into cold water on Christmas day (let alone any day). It's a silly 'tradition' and they should stick to doing it in enclosed water if they have to do it.

Two people have undoubtedly paid the price, ruined Christmas for their families and kept the Coastguard / Emergency services busy all because they wanted a Christmas dip.

[Vanden Saab]

g4ry13 said:

I personally don't see the appeal of plunging into cold water on Christmas day (let alone any day). It's a silly 'tradition' and they should stick to doing it in enclosed water if they have to do it.

Two people have undoubtedly paid the price, ruined Christmas for their families and kept the Coastguard / Emergency services busy all because they wanted a Christmas dip.

I sea swim all year round but not every day and never if the sea is rough. We are lucky in that part of our beach is very shallow so I can swim without ever being out of my depth and can just walk out if I need to
It is a completely different experience to pool swimming, you feel at one with the world when in the water and you feel really alive and buzzing for three or four hours once you are out and warm again.

[PurplePenguin]

g4ry13 said:

I personally don't see the appeal of plunging into cold water on Christmas day (let alone any day). It's a silly 'tradition' and they should stick to doing it in enclosed water if they have to do it.

Two people have undoubtedly paid the price, ruined Christmas for their families and kept the Coastguard / Emergency services busy all because they wanted a Christmas dip.

Darwin Award contenders

[Blue62]

You’d certainly be buzzing after a swim off Exmouth or Budleigh given the amount of st South West Water have been pumping into it for the last couple of years, it’s disgusting

[ecsrobin]

PurplePenguin said:

g4ry13 said:

I personally don't see the appeal of plunging into cold water on Christmas day (let alone any day). It's a silly 'tradition' and they should stick to doing it in enclosed water if they have to do it.

Two people have undoubtedly paid the price, ruined Christmas for their families and kept the Coastguard / Emergency services busy all because they wanted a Christmas dip.

Darwin Award contenders

You’d be amazed how common rescues are when there’s weather warnings out. I’ve previously been involved with a scout group caught in an amber weather warning on Dartmoor that needed rescuing by helicopter. The weather warning was known 2 days before but they pushed ahead.

Same with a uni mountaineering club in Scotland however that turned out fatal.