A swimmer who kept coming back

For Steve Price, the Bristol Channel was not a challenge to be met once and forgotten. It became a series of increasingly ambitious crossings: first from Wales to England, then in the opposite direction, and finally out and back in a single swim. Along the way he built a career that would take him across the English and North Channels too. His story is one of repeated returns to difficult water, and of the people on shore and in escort boats who helped make those swims possible. [1, 4]

By the time he set his sights on the Bristol Channel, Steve had already taken on one of marathon swimming’s best-known challenges. On 18 August 1987, he crossed the English Channel.

The surviving records establish the date, although the details of his pilot, vessel and exact time still deserve checking against the original paperwork. Years later, a story told at a Clevedon gathering recalled a poem written by his support crew about waiting in Dover for the weather to cooperate. It is a reminder that the swim itself is only part of a channel crossing: there is also the waiting, preparation and uncertainty before anyone enters the water. [4, 6]

Finding a route across the Bristol Channel

The waters between Penarth and Clevedon presented a different sort of test. Strong tidal streams make the route a navigational undertaking as well as an endurance swim. In 1990, a Bristol newspaper previewed Steve’s plans to attempt the crossing; the documented successful swim came the following year. [1]

On 28 September 1991, Steve swam from Penarth Sailing Club Slipway to Clevedon Slipway in 7 hours 45 minutes 18 seconds. The British Long Distance Swimming Association records it as an inaugural result. It was an achievement worth celebrating in its own right, but Steve had not finished with the route. [1]

The two swims proved that the journey could be made in either direction, though they were separate undertakings, each with its own tidal and navigational demands. The next step would join them together. [1]

On 21 September 1992, he returned to the same stretch of water and swam the other way, from Clevedon to Penarth, recording 8 hours 17 minutes 2 seconds.

The day he swam there and back

On Friday 2 September 1994, Steve set out from Clevedon at 4 a.m. This time, Penarth was not the finish. It was the halfway point. A surviving chart of the swim preserves the times, the two-way route and the names of the people who accompanied him. It is an unusually detailed record of a day that would become central to his Bristol Channel story. [2]

According to the chart, Steve reached Penarth Beach at 11.31 a.m. and departed again at 11.35 a.m. That four-minute interval is all the chart tells us about the turn: it does not establish whether he stood, fed or precisely how the observer recorded the transition. What is certain from the documented chronology is that he headed back across the channel and reached Clevedon Beach at 7.43 p.m. The recorded total was 15 hours 43 minutes 17 seconds. [1, 2]

Behind those bare times stood a sizeable support operation. The chart credits Bob Sprange with navigation and John Merritt as official observer. Sylvia Price, Andy Headon and Nathan Roberts are named as the inflatable crew. Aboard M.V. Kerrie-Becca were skipper and navigator Chris Eager, with Ken Price, Tony Hughes and Laurie Eager. Avonmouth Radio and Avonmouth Signal Station are also acknowledged. Their names belong in the story: a crossing like this was never the work of the swimmer alone. [2]

The chart has been digitally recreated from the scanned Admiralty chart, with its original annotations retained. It preserves the course as documented in the historical material, rather than presenting a modern GPS recording. Its printed panel also records a distance of 29 nautical miles, a figure discussed separately in the historical notes below. [2]

Another channel, another challenge

The Bristol Channel double was not the end of Steve’s ambitions. On 21 July 2000, he completed the North Channel from Scotland to Ireland in 16 hours 56 minutes, piloted by Brian Meharg aboard Purple Heather. A later account of Steve’s talk in Clevedon says that success came on his fourth attempt. That detail gives the result a different weight: the recorded finish followed previous efforts that had not reached the far shore. [5, 6]

With swims in the English, Bristol and North Channels, Steve became part of the history of the three-channel challenge sometimes known as the Original Triple Crown. The exact terminology and recognition criteria have developed over time, but the underlying sequence of swims is well documented. [1, 4, 7]

Keeping the stories alive

Steve’s contribution reaches beyond the results lists. In September 2014, he spoke at Clevedon’s Tides Festival about his channel-swimming experiences, with proceeds from the event supporting Marlens, the charity associated with Clevedon Marine Lake. His accounts of difficult crossings, waiting for weather and repeated attempts carried the experience of one generation of swimmers to another. [6]

The photographs and chart that Steve has supplied to the Monster Swims historical project make that history more immediate. They put faces, boats and a navigated route alongside the recorded times. More details may yet emerge from original observer reports or Steve’s own recollections. For now, the record tells a compelling story: a swimmer who crossed to Clevedon, crossed back to Penarth, and then decided that doing both in one day was the next challenge. [1, 2]