The ultimate adventure experience for open water swimmers is launched today in the Lake District.
While the tough guys and gals of the swimming world are known to take to the lakes without wetsuits, the latest idea is to drop the trunks and costumes as well before plunging into Windermere.
The Great Naked Swim Challenge is the new guided swimming experience to be offered by Ambleside-based specialists Swim the Lakes.
Participants will shed their clothes and shed their inhibitions and dive into and swim across England’s largest lake in the company of Lake District channel swimming hero Thomas Noblett.
Noblett, who has swum in all of the Lake District’s big lakes and completed a channel swim after featuring on the TV programme The Lakes, has teamed up with Pete Kelly of Swim the Lakes for the new venture.
Noblett said: “I’ve done cold swims where you keep your trunks on, and I’ve always wondered what was the point. If you’re going without a wetsuit, it’s a bit wimpy to wear anything at all.”
Kelly said: “This is swimming as nature intended and when combined with a swim across beautiful Lake Windermere provides you with the ultimate Lake District Swimming Challenge. The sensation of swimming naked in open water is really delightful. It’s the totally-free way of getting back to nature, and it’s been found to improve open water swimming technique.”
He added: “We want to assure clients that the sessions will be conducted in accordance with the British Swimming Association’s STRIP guidelines (Swimming Trunks Removed in Private).”
Noblett, pictured with Kelly in training for the first starkers session, said: “People say we’re stark raving bonkers to swim in the lakes, so we might as well go stark naked too.”
For further information and booking details click here: http://www.swimthelakes.co.uk/product/great-naked-swim-challenge/
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