Swimmers Ready for the Pier to Pier Challenge

One of the south coast's classic open-water tests is back on the calendar. The Pier to Pier swim sends a field of hundreds across the open water between Bournemouth Pier and Boscombe Pier, a course of roughly a mile and a quarter that has become a bucket-list fixture for sea swimmers across the region.

It is a charity event at heart, and it wears its seriousness lightly: club swimmers chasing times share the water with first-timers in borrowed wetsuits, and the beach at the finish is one of the friendliest places in town on event morning.

A town that swims

The event sits on top of a genuine year-round culture. Dawn dippers work the water off the groynes in every month with an R in it, and the gently shelving, sheltered bay is one of the more forgiving places in Britain to learn to love open water.

Anyone tempted should build up in the sea rather than the pool, respect the flags and the conditions on the day, and check entry details on the event listing. For gentler ways into the water, our watersports guide covers lessons, hire and the calmer corners of the bay, and what's on has the rest of the summer's sporting calendar.