Rebekah Kefford, from Birchington, plans to become the first woman to swim between two decommissioned World War Two forts and the Kent shore has begun cold water training, ahead of her swim in August.
Rebekah is set to take on the eight mile (12.8km) challenge from the Red Sands forts, raising money for the spinal injury charity Aspire.
Having spent the winter building up her strength in an indoor pool, Rebekah is now taking to the sea. She is up to around 45 to 50 minutes in the sea, with the temperature about 10 degrees”.
Rebekah said “those are going to increase as the time goes on, so I’ll keep doing the pool swimming alongside the sea, and the sea will just build, it’ll be one hour, then an hour and a half, two hours. I’ll build myself up to a maximum of probably five, because we’re estimating this will take me no more than six hours. I’m doing it without a wetsuit, it’s Channel Swim rules, no wetsuit, so flotation device.”
Dan Brown, from Whitstable, became the first person to swim from the forts to the Kent coast in August 2024, in a time of five hours and six minutes, according to Aspire.
