TV star to swim Atlantic (From Daily Echo)

TV star Ben Fogle in Southampton University study by swimming Atlantic

7:25am Wednesday 23rd May 2012 in Entertainments

TV star Ben Fogle in Southampton University study by swimming Atlantic

HE’S already rowed across the Atlantic in a boat, but now TV personality and adventurer Ben Fogle is planning to take on an even greater challenge – by swimming the 3,000 miles from the USA to Cornwall.

The star, who is planning to do much of his gruelling training for the mammoth swim in the waters of The Solent, will be monitored every inch of the way by scientists from the University of Southampton.

The 38-year-old dad-of-two will carry sensors to let researchers study temperatures, currents and marine organisms in the Atlantic.

Ben is hoping to spend up to 12 hours a day in the water, swimming the equivalent of the Channel, to make it to Britain in his target of 100 days, when he takes on the challenge – which has only previously been managed by one person – next year.

He will be accompanied by a support yacht for sleeping and eating, but will log his starting and stopping points each day to ensure he swims the full distance.

Ben, who is hoping his mission will help homeless charity Centrepoint as well as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Plastic Oceans Foundation, said: “I hope the swim will continue to inspire people to push their boundaries, to aspire and to achieve.

“I think for an island nation we’ve lost our affinity to the ocean and I want to recreate that.”