Gráinne Moss: Marathon swimmer on Hall of Fame honour, conquering Oceans Seven challenge

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Pine from Newstalk ZB.

Jason Pine (0:06)

Gráinne Moss has completed one of the most extraordinary endurance challenges in world sport. The Ocean's Seven. Seven of the world's toughest open water swimming crossings.

The Irish-born Kiwi has spent almost four decades working towards the achievement, overcoming brutal currents, freezing temperatures, jellyfish stings, and even a close encounter with a shark along the way. And now she's received another honor, having been selected for induction into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. Gráinne Moss is with us. Gráinne, congratulations on this incredible achievement. The Ocean's Seven. For those who aren't familiar with it, can you just explain to us how unique this achievement actually is?

Gráinne Moss (0:54)

Well, thanks very much for that and the congrats. So, I was the 45th person in the world to complete it. There's currently 52 people in the world that have completed the Ocean's Seven. The Ocean's Seven are seven significant bodies of water in different parts of the world that have their own challenges in terms of crossing them. So, you've got the English Channel from England to France. You've got the North Channel from Ireland to Scotland. You've got Cook Strait.

You've got a swim in Japan. You've got a swim in Hawaii. You've got a swim in the States. And then you've got Spain to Morocco as well. So, all of these swims are done without wet suits. So it's one swimsuit, one hat and one pair of goggles. And you're not allowed to touch anybody or anything when you're in the water. So it's a pretty significant endurance event.

And even the logistics of getting slots in all of those areas to swim and getting the right weather. That's part of the reason why it takes quite a long time.

Jason Pine (1:59)

Indeed, indeed. When you started this journey, did you genuinely believe you'd complete all seven or was it more a case of taking each challenge as it came?

Gráinne Moss (2:11)

So I started the journey back in 1987 So quite some time ago, when at 17, I became the first Irish woman to swim the English Channel. Now back in the day, back in 1987, actually the Ocean Seven wasn't a thing.

It only kind of became a thing in about 2011

And actually in 2011, I had swum the English Channel. I'd also swum Cook Street.

But one of the swims that I really wanted to do was to swim from Ireland to Scotland, because I'm originally from right where that swim starts. But it's really, really cold. And it has very, very horrible jellyfish. And when I was a young girl, only five people in the world had swum that. Nobody had swum it on a first attempt. And I did make an attempt in 1996, but got very badly swung by jellyfish. So for me, that was always the swim that was the one that got away. So when I started back into kind of longer distance swimming, when my kids had got a bit older and I had a bit more time to get into the pool and the sea, that was back in 2021 I started with, I did swam Lake Taupo, and then I swam Fovu. And I thought, well, if I could do Fovu, I could maybe do Ireland to Scotland. You know, I'd always made a joke about, you know, a middle-aged woman heading back to try and swim something that she'd tried to swim in her twenties. And I had it back in 2022, and then I swam that. And to be honest, then I thought, well, I've done three of the Ocean Sevens. So then it was probably 2023 that the Ocean Sevens started to become a real goal for me, after I'd already completed three of them.

Jason Pine (3:54)

The final swim, the Sugaru Strait in Japan. This sounds like an extraordinary story in itself. You attempted it last year and didn't make it. What happened on that occasion? And what was it like to go back this year and achieve it?

Gráinne Moss (4:10)

So the Sugaru Strait is a really interesting swim because what happens is, you're swimming from south to north, but the sea is running from east to west. So you've got incredibly strong east to west currents.

And it's an interesting swim because it's 20 kilometres from the two shortest points, but you actually don't start from the shortest point, because if you did, you would immediately turn right and never get north. So you actually start 10 kilometres before the shortest point, which can be quite soul-destroying in terms of having to swim 10 kms to the west along the coastline. And that's so that when you do get hit by this very strong east-west current, that you have an opportunity to still make it into land on the north side. Last year, I was swimming absolutely fabulously well. I was really happy with how I swam, but I got caught in a 7.8 knot current going east to west. And it doesn't matter how fast you are. I mean, unless you have an outboard engine, you're not going to cut through that. So I spent, I was in the water for about 13 and a half hours, but the last two hours, I literally didn't move anywhere. So we just had to call it and say, look, the ocean has won, and the conditions are not, it's not going to let me past this year.