More Info →Article on Karena Doig from Adventure mag JulyAug 1898 page 12

Description

I've been dreaming about swimming Cook Strait for years. It's 12.09pm on February 18. The lighthouse on the Brothers Island sticks out against the hazy outline of the North Island. It looks so far away. I savour the last moments on land, the warm gravel feels good under my feet. I'm feeling nervous as I wade into the cold Cook Strait waters. "Go for it!" someone shouts from the escort boat as I plunge into the water. Gee, its freezing!

Doubts begin to flow through Karena's mind as she starts her attempt on Cook Strait. If she completes the crossing she will be the youngest woman ever to do the crossing. The water temperature is 14°C. She keeps telling herself. "I won't give up." She knows her mum and dad have generously given their hard earned savings for the attempt. Karena doesn't want to let them down. As the water seems to get colder, she prays a lot, "Lord please make it warm." The first half hour is the worst. The searing cold penetrates to the bone as she hangs on and tries to swim faster to generate more warmth. Her school PE teacher, Peter Jamieson paddles beside her on a surf ski. In the Tangaroa, ferry master John Brown plots the course and guides her. Friends from the Waitarere Surf Club accompany her in their IRB (inflatable rescue boat). Karena sings in her mind and frequently a line sticks and it keeps repeating over and over. When the boredom sets in she is able to switch off.

Surprisingly, her previous longest open water swim had been a four hour training swim in Lake Taupo barely a month earlier. Most of her training had been done in local swimming pools. Karena's strength, is her adaptability and her resistance to cold. Tony Keenan, coach of Phillip Rush, one of the top international endurance swimmers, believes because Cook Strait has been swum many times there is a tendency to underrate its difficulty. He describes it as a tougher test than the English Channel because of the unpredictable weather and tides. "The physiological and psychological strains on a swimmer can be crippling. There are a great many more failures than successes."

After two hours of swimming the temperature in the strait warms up to 18°C. Karena Doig keeps her big strokes around 70 to 72 per minute with the occasional stop for sips of Milo, to wash the salt out of her mouth and a few chunks of banana and red dates. Into the fifth hour Karena is instructed to stop. "I see someone making a hand shape of a fin. I don't see anything." Peter Jamieson has seen a shark and quickly takes his feet out of the water. He signals shark to the escort boat. Alison Doig aboard the Tangaroa was initially stunned. "I looked down at the shark and all I wanted was to get my daughter out of the water, this isn't worth it," she said. Peter Jamieson said later, "The shark's dorsal fin cut through the swell about 1.5 metres in front of my surf ski and about 2 metres from Karena. It didn't appear to affect her much as she quickly got back into her freestyle rhythm."

Around 6.30pm as the sun nears the horizon, the water temperature drops quickly. Karena feels tired and her arms and legs ache with a combination of fatigue and cold. Peter Jamieson in a full wet suit had intended to go with her for about five of the last eight kilometres; an experienced lifesaver he gives up after completing only three kilometres. "I just had to get out. I was that cold my jaw was locking up and I couldn't breathe properly. I've been in surf lifesaving 15 years, I've competed in iron man competitions, triathlons and marathons but I've never seen such a feat of endurance and sheer guts. I couldn't hack it and I was in a wetsuit. Remember she hadn't swum in anything like this cold and yet, here she was, a 15 year old youngster, with this incredible willpower."

Once Karena was able to see land clearly she focussed on a hill near Ohau Point and for the last few kilometres there was never any doubt that she was going to make it. She came in for her landing on a rocky stretch of coastline about 1km south of Ohau point. She tried to stand up, there was only seaweed beneath her feet and she crumpled. A few strokes on, her feet touch gravel, but her legs buckle under her. Peter Jamieson helps her up as her mother wraps a blanket around her. She is the youngest woman ever to swim Cook Strait.

Karena Doig is in the 5th form at Horowhenua College and describes herself as a very average student academically. Her real interests lie elsewhere; sport. She enjoys swimming and is quite versatile, recently winning a 100 metres butterfly event in Wellington and in January this year gained a 2nd placing in the Manawatu under-15, 400 metre freestyle championships. For her 15th birthday she got a voucher for a flying lesson at Paraparaumu, but so far swimming training and the Cook Strait swim has prevented her taking it up. Karena wants to be a pilot or a nurse when she leaves school and jokes about joining the Flying Doctor service in Australia. She loves basketball and would like to have a go at scuba diving. Recently she started canoeing on the local lake. Underpinning everything Karena does, is a strong Christian faith which means a lot to her.

Her parents say "We had had to put the brakes on her a year or so back as she had a job after school, Guides, basketball, youth group, swimming and school work." With a twinkle in her eye she says to her parents, "I want to take up judo, too."

Born in Invercargill and later moving to Temuka where they had a seven metre pool in their backyard, Karena has always enjoyed strong support from her parents, Kevin and Alison. Kevin was laid off work last year when Elders closed down their Levin operation, but he's quite philosophical about it. He and Alison now run a sandwich bar in Levin in which Karena helps out when she can. She has obviously inherited her powerful build from her parents. Kevin, a big framed ex-Southland senior rugby forward and Alison, a tall, strong woman. In the Doig family home you can feel the warmth and strong sense of together-ness. Karena's brother Mathew, sits in the corner listening to the conversation. He is 17 years old and his hands stained a dark purple after a day's blackberry picking in his job at a local berry farm. Karena prods him, "He'd be a good athlete if he wanted to. First he would have to give up smoking and do a bit of training." Last year Mathew was placed 2nd in Manawatu Secondary School high jump and clearly has a lot of promise. Mathew laughs at Karena's friendly gibe and enjoys the focus being on him after seeing his sister getting the lion's share of the publicity after her successful swim. The night I visited the Doig family Karena was 24 hours into fasting for the 40 Hour Famine. She cares for people and society. There is a sense of peace and joy about her. Things don't grind her down as they do many of her peers. She shows a maturity well beyond her 15 years.

On the 12th of March she competed in the Kapiti Women's Triathlon. She was first out of the water in her group on the initial 400 metre sea swim leg, and put in a powerful cycle, passing many and being passed by only one other woman. On the final running leg, her weakest discipline, she ran quite steadily to finish 3rd in a large field in the under-18 age group.

At 15, she has many dreams. Her childhood dream of swimming Cook Strait is now fact. Other dreams embrace competing in the Olympics and paragliding. Her coaches, Leslie Parkin and Steve Prescott, both believe she has a big future in endurance swimming. Steve, who is an endurance swimmer himself, says, "Karena's dogged determination, strong build and natural ability gives her a clear advantage over other swim-mers."

OTHER ENDURANCE SWIMMING REPORTS

FIRST SUCCESSFUL SWIM FROM KAPITI TO MANA ISLAND

Marathon swimmer Donna Bouzaid became the first person to swim the 19.3km from Kapiti Island to Mana Island on April 6 this year.

Bouzaid capitalised on a favourable tide to complete the swim in a very fast time of four hours 14 minutes, two hours earlier than she and her support crew had planned.

"When you're out there you think of all sorts of things," she said afterwards.

"I prayed a bit and just thought about life in general. I thought back to some of my other swims and told myself that this one was only half as hard as swimming Cook Strait."

She swam with a school of porpoises for almost an hour and said she didn't have any fear while in the water. They were lovely, they came within an arm's length of me."

Having held the record for the fastest Cook Strait Crossing in 1985, which has been broken twice since, and completing a 24km swim in Fiji in 1987, Donna had envisaged this would be her swansong. "Things went so well that I'm not so sure now. I'll have another think about it next week."

Ray Gough, who has coached her for the past five years, says her time will be hard to better. "This swim is not as technically tough as Cook Strait but then it is fraught with all the problems from the different estuaries and localised rips, tides and currents.

"Because she swam so quickly it was touch and go whether we would get in. The tide was running like a river and she could have ended up having to swim for another hour and a half," he said.

FEATHERSTON MAN BEATS 1959 LAKE WAIRARAPA SWIM RECORD

A19-year-old Featherston man became the first man to swim the length of Lake Wairarapa on Sunday March 26.

Andrew Hosnall swam the 24km in five hours 33 minutes, beating the six hours 15 minutes time of the only other person to complete the distance, Sally McPhie (nee Smith) in 1959.

At the end of his swim Andrew said he was frozen numb during the swim, his second attempt, and wanted to get out a couple of times. The main problem encountered in swimming Lake Wairarapa is the cold-water springs which are icy cold, and situated in the middle of the lake, bringing the lake temperature to 8C.

The crossing was from Lake Reserve at the north end to Allsops Bay at the Southern end of Lake Wairarapa.

The swim's main purpose was to raise funds for Featherston's new ambulance.

CHANNEL STATISTICS

English Channel Swimming Association chair-man Ray Scott told journalists at a recent conference that in 113 years of Channel swim-ming about 3900 people have made 5200 attempts and 360 have succeeded. During the same period two people have died. "This shows that the sport is much safer than most," he said.

COOK STRAIT BUTTERFLY ATTEMPT FAILS

Canadian endurance swimmer Vicki Keith gave up her butterfly attempt on Cook Strait at 11pm on Friday May 15— 15 hours after leaving Perano Head in the South Island.

Fickle tides and problems with support vessels finally sunk Vicki's first attempt to swim the strait.

Weather for the attempt turned nasty with support boats awash in two-metre swells. Crews of the two inflatables battled to keep in contact with the swimmer despite continuing engine failures throughout the evening. Twice the boats hit her and at one stage a supporter was swept overboard.

Pilot John Brown eventually called the swim off at 11 pm, just four miles west of Cape Terawhiti on the North Island. He said the combination of the tides and the southerly wind finally beat the attempt.

A late start from the South Island prevented Vicki gaining vital headway before the southerly spring tide swept her deep into Cook Strait.

At mid-afternoon a decision was made to head for Wellington and land at Sinclair Head. But once the southerly came through, that plan was abandoned. John Brown had hoped the afternoon tide would carry Vicki far enough north to put her back on target but this did not eventuate. With little hope of making real ground and difficulties in seeing Vicki, John Brown convinced her to call it quits.

Despite falling short of her ambition to swim the notorious Cook Strait, Vicki swam nearly twice the distance of the point to point distance, covering 59km during her swim and beating her own world record for long distance butterfly swimming.

During a brief interview after 15 hours in the water, Vicki is keen to have another attempt as soon as conditions are suitable. Although tired, Vicki laughed about the huge jelly fish and a six pack of beer which floated by during her swim.

On May 13, Vicki became the first person to butterfly her way across Sydney Harbour. She did the crossing in 13 and a half hours, averaging 30 strokes an hour and covering 25km.

ULTRA ENDURANCE SWIM FEAT BEING PLANNED FOR 1990 CELEBRATIONS

If marathon swimmer Phillip Rush feels a little tired at the end of one week in February next year, it will be easily understandable. Provided everything goes to plan, he will have completed one of the most amazing endurance feats of all time. Within a seven day span he aims to swim Lake Wakatipu, Cook Strait, Lake Taupo and Cross from Coromandel to Auckland.

Coach Tony Keenan, who says swims are being organised as part of the 1990 celebrations, believes Rush has the stamina needed to succeed. But weather and water conditions will have a big influence on his chances. "Wakatipu is certain to be cold at that time of year; you can't really foretell very well from day to day how Cook Strait will be; Taupo is long and things can get very rugged very quickly there," Mr Keenan said. The biggest unknown will be the last leg.

Identification

Date

July 1989 to August 1989