She dreams of crossing the ocean to swim

Photo Amélie St-Yves
The endurance athlete from Trois-Rivières, Heidi Levasseur returned from a trip to Senegal, in Africa, and in France, where she met with sponsors to help him in his crossing of the Atlantic by swimming, scheduled next winter.

Amélie St-Yves

Monday, 12 march, 2018 01:00

UPDATE
Monday, 12 march, 2018 01:00

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THREE-RIVERS | swimmer, stamina 38-year-old wants to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic ocean to swim the next winter.

Heidi Levasseur is preparing for 2015 to cross to swim the 3,000 km that separate the city of Dakar in Senegal, in Africa, at Recife, Brazil, in South America.

The adventure must start in December for a period of four to six months, which represents more than 150 days at sea and two million strokes of the arm.

If she accomplishes this feat, she will be the first woman in the world to complete the crossing without travel segments in boat.

“I want to see how far I can push my limit. It is the project of my life and it is something that will connect the peoples. I do participate in the Senegal, France, brazil, Quebec. I included people who have this flame of self-transcendence, ” said the woman from Three Rivers.

The plan is simple : swim when the sea is beautiful and rest when the winds pick up. The ocean should be fairly calm near the equator at this time of the year, and the water temperature should oscillate between 25 and 30 degrees Celcius, according to the swimmer in open water.

Sharks and jellyfish

“Between the months of December and may-June, it is a climatic period where we do not expect any storms or hurricanes monstrous. There may still have heavy rain and very windy, but short, ” says Heidi Levasseur.

She plans to swim four hours in the morning, take a break for lunch during which she will sleep and eat lots of protein, followed by another four hours of swimming in the afternoon.

You need to be careful of sharks and jellyfish, all the more that she will swim not in a cage attached to the boat, but without barrier. A kayaker will follow it closely, with its sonar and its liquid anti-shark to fend off the beasts if one ventured too close.

Moreover, the combination of Heidi Levasseur will be the pattern of a fish that sharks don’t attack.

Failure of 2016

The athlete has also learned of the failure of the ex-policeman briton Ben Hooper, who had attempted the same journey in 2016. One day, as he had removed his suit, because he was hot, he swam directly into a school of jellyfish, which stung several times.

“He had the combination, but it has not been used. This is a good lesson, namely that even if it is hot, it is always better to be protected, ” said Heidi Levasseur.

Jellyfish, semi-transparent, and subtle, are difficult to detect and their bites can result in coma or death.

The sport is swimming now in the pool four or five times per week, for a period of two hours, in addition to two workouts in the gym and a few half-hours of yoga.

Its programme will become more long and hard this spring, up to eight hours per day, when it will result in La Rochelle, France, next summer.

They swam in the Atlantic

1998 : Benoît Lecomte (France) from Massachusetts to France

1995 : Guy Delage (France) from France to the american coast of Barbados

These two men could have been the boat drift while they were sleeping, a distance which has not been documented. Heidi Levasseur would be the first to record all the data necessary to prove that she swam the distance in full.

The exploits of Heidi

► Montreal-Quebec swimming

250 km

► Gatineau-Montreal

150 km

► Quebec-Matane

350 km

► 24 hours of swimming in La Tuque

His crew

• Doctor
• Massage therapist
• Captain
• Assistant to the captain
• Mechanic
• Kayaker
• Cameraman

Shipping to $1 million

The adventure is estimated at$ 1 Million, $ 500,000 of which still remain to be found, if an agreement for the boat materializes well, as expected. Heidi Levasseur has good hope to attach the budget in the time. In the event that this is not the case, the worst case scenario would be to postpone the crossing of a year.