Strong southwesterly winds have delayed Penny Palfrey’s record-making attempt to swim from Little Cayman to Grand Cayman.
The Australian/British swimmer was due to begin her almost 68-mile swim at 3am Thursday morning, but with the weather forecast predicting winds from the southwest, Ms Palfrey and her support team decided to postpone the crossing until early Saturday.
“If things change in the meantime, we’ll go, but right now it’s looking like we’ll have to put it off by 48 hours or so,” said Ms Palfrey’s husband Chris after a mid-afternoon team briefing.
The decision came just 12 hours before the marathon open water swimmer was to set off from the west end of Little Cayman in the small hours of the morning.
Chris Briggs, who is in charge of the boats that will accompany the swimmer, said: “The winds are coming from the southwest and conditions are going to deteriorate over the next 36 to 48 hours. It’ll be hard for her to swim against it. We’re going to wait until Saturday morning.”
Ms Palfrey is attempting to set a new world record for the longest solo unassisted ocean swim.
On Monday, she set a new speed record for swimming between Cayman Brac and Little Cayman.
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