Pacer Cliff Lumsden and coach Gus Ryder, sitting forward in the boat, encourage Marilyn Bell as she passes the halfway mark.

ari

By BILL JAMES

| VICTORIA, B.C.
' From the deck of the deep-
¥g tug Sudbury, at 5.47 a.m.
ptday last week,.I saw Mari-
© Bell enter the choppy
peters of Juan de Fuca Strait
at Horseshoe Bay here. She
Pproached the water’s edge,
ce for a second, then
.. ged in and began swim-

z Strongly. Nine hours
Ben) ste later I saw her
3 om the water in a state
complete exhaustion and
ae Just 5.6 miles from

ngeles, Washington.

NS

? Bt 340 p.m. it was evident
a arilyn was in trouble.
.. Stroking rate of 58 to 60
4 ee as had slowed to 52
Toro Inute. Cliff Lumsden of
a nto was swimming beside
Ru at the end, as was Pat
Yssell of Vancouver.

At 3.40°Ma

: rilyn stopped and

Beaded to be taken from the

EW But Gus Ryder replied,

ci been training for three

, a for this swim, now let’s
Tough with it.”

panlva lunged forward in
a ater and took about four
Se Then her body went
3 pace head went back and
fa Sappeared beneath the
Ce for a moment. Cliff

Msden rab =
as all oe bed her and it

rom the start of the swim

a.m. Marilyn was
fairly heavy chop.

Ucking
Bu :
t by eight o’clock the water

or an hour before the fin- -

was like a mill pond, and
things looked good. There
was practically no wind at
all and Marilyn was swim-
ming strongly about five miles
from the starting point.

A dense fog completely en-
veloped the swim flotilla and
remained until the end of
the attempt. At nine o’clock
tine flood tide whickr had car-
ried the Toronto girl from her
starting point was changing
to the ebb which it was hoped
would carry her to Port An-
geles. At this point the at-
titude among the ‘reporters
end officials aboard the Sud-
bury was one of expectation
as all awaited the coming of
the ebb tide. Cliff Lumsden
jumped into the water and
began to pace Marilyn.

Ryder and other Officials
aboard the small boat accom-
panying Marilyn were con-
stantly wisecracking and jok-
ing in an attempt to keep
Maerilyn’s spirits up. At one
point an official told Ryder
that the water temperature
had risen from the original
46 degrees to 48. Ryder then
yelled to Marilyn, “If it hits
5b, * sell!

From 11 to 11:30 a.m. pes-
simism prevailed aboard the
Sudbury. It was felt by all of
us that Marilyn was not mak-
ing sufficient progress to the
north and west to be in the
correct position at the time
of the next tide change.

By noon, however, a spirit
of optimism returned when
Marilyn’s progress picked up

due to increased strength of
the tide. We were 8.6 miles
from Port Angeles at 12:15. At
12.20 we crossed the interna-
tional boundary’ and spirits of
ail those in the flotilla soared.

At 1 p.m. gloom returned
when it became obvious that
Marilyn would not be close
enough to the American shore
to escape being swept off
course when the tide changed
egain at approximately 3 p.m.

An assistant aboard the boat
carrying Gus Ryder donned a
gorilla. mask which drew
laughs from Marilyn and Cliff
Lumsden in the water. Lum-
sden cracked: “Hey, that. re-
minds me of my brother.”

At 1:35 p.m. I went to the
bridge of the Sudbury and
took our position with the use
of radar equipment, which in-
cidently was our only means
of knowing where we were in
the dense fog. We were 7.1
mile from Port Angeles.

At about this time: Gus
Ryder sent a message, to the
captain of the Sudbury asking
him to move the ship closer
to Marilyn so that those on
board could give her a cheer
to spur her on.

At 2 p.m. it was obvious that
Marilyn would fail. With 6.5
-miles to go and the tide change
due in one hour the situation
was considered hopeles.

In my opinion Marilyn
should have been pulled from
the water at this point since
her chances were almost non-
existent. I expected that the

swim would be called off after
the tide change when she

would have been swept to
the west. We were stunned

lyn defeated after game try >

when the end came suddenly
at 3:20 p.m. when Marilyn un-

expectedly collapsed just 5.6
tuiles from her goal.

Marilyn waves to friends as she enters the water.

August 17, 1956 —PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 15