Jasmine Harrison’s next challenge: swimming Land’s End to John o’ Groats

Last year, Jasmine Harrison became the youngest woman to row the Atlantic alone — despite an almost complete lack of previous experience. This month, the 22-year-old from Thirsk in North Yorkshire is embarking on a new challenge, making the journey from Land’s End in western Cornwall to John o’ Groats in northeastern Scotland not by cycling, hiking or even running, but by swimming. The 900-mile journey is expected to take three months. Harrison will work with the tides, swimming for two six-hour blocks each day, sleeping on a yacht and using GPS tracking to start each session where the last ended.

The feat has been done twice before, in 2013 and 2018, but Harrison would become the first woman to achieve it. Whereas she started the Talisker Atlantic Challenge race with the minimum 120-hours experience required (and only got into a rowing boat for the first time a year before setting off from the Canaries), Harrison is a professional swimming instructor. “I knew that I wanted to do something to do with swimming for my next challenge because that’s what I’ve done my entire life,” she says.

Nevertheless, after setting off from Land’s End on July 1, strong winds slowed progress and one of her support kayakers capsized — Harrison admitted the first day had been “a bit of a disaster”. Later in the week she was forced to wait in Padstow while repairs were carried out to the yacht and after six days had notched up 42 miles.

While she is confident about the swimming, Harrison says the main challenges will be dealing with the effects of salt water on her skin, the wetsuit chafing her neck, and jellyfish stings. Ross Edgley, who swam the route in 2018, reported suffering from “salt tongue” (“I realised something was bad when I woke up with chunks of it on my pillow,” he said later), and had to wrap his neck in duct tape.

thefulllength.co.uk