Open water swimming is making a return to Bristol’s Floating Harbour. The swims are organised by Bristol charity All Aboard Watersports, which has signed a new contract with Bristol City Council to deliver open water swimming in Bristol’s Floating Harbour.
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00:00 All Aboard Water Sports Centre is a charity. Our aims and objectives is to get as many
00:07 people on the water regardless of their barriers or boundaries. So people with physical, mental,
00:13 emotional disabilities, but also people with social and economic boundaries. So people
00:22 of all walks, all life, to try and get them on the water somehow.
00:25 All Aboard Water Sports is a charity that has in the past got people from all sorts
00:31 of backgrounds onto the water that wouldn't normally go on the water. And we are now extending
00:36 that to being in the water by doing open water swimming here in the harbour.
00:40 Yeah, so we're very pleased to announce that we've been offered, successfully offered the
00:44 tender to open water swimming here on the harbour.
00:47 We had two trials last year. The first we did with a company from Manchester called
00:51 U-Swim, who obviously have got some expertise in that type of thing. And the second trial
00:55 we did ourselves in conjunction with Bristol City Council to test out whether people would
01:00 want to open water swim in the harbour and what they thought of it and to make sure we
01:04 could run it safely.
01:06 It was a really successful campaign and trial, not only to test our operations to deliver
01:13 safe swimming, but also for people to access the water and get in the water, which has
01:20 not been really done in this way before. But it's a really good opportunity to do swimming
01:26 in the harbour in a safe, controlled environment.
01:29 Open water swimming will be available with All Aboard Water Sports Centre every weekend
01:35 this summer from Saturday the 15th of June. Let's find out what the benefits are of cold
01:41 water swimming.
01:44 Open water swimming has so many great benefits, not only to your physical health, but to your
01:51 mental health as well. And there's some really good statistics and some really good studies
01:56 that's been provided recently of the benefits.
01:59 Being a volunteer on this charity is because I see the benefit people get from being on
02:03 or in the water. I see autistic children that are running on land relax on a boat. I see
02:10 people who have maybe some mental health issues, you know, enjoying themselves on the water
02:16 and doing something different.
02:18 Where we are situated in the middle of Bristol just gives access to so many people that wouldn't
02:24 necessarily be able to access water sports in this kind of fashion. So if we can provide
02:28 swimming in a controlled, safe environment to everyone who can get down here, walk here,
02:35 cycle here, get the bus here, it's just a really exciting opportunity.
02:39 I think people get a lot of health benefits out of it. And it is a really great thing
02:44 to do. And this is a great stretch of water to do it as long as they do it during this
02:48 organised session for safety.
02:50 It is an organised event with lots of safety. We'll have trained lifeguards, we'll have
02:54 a powerboat out there. Don't swim in the harbour at any other time because it's not safe to