What is AC3?

Jennifer Figge was touted “first woman to swim the Atlantic” in February 2009. But what few people know is she actually swam across the Atlantic for a second time just two months later in April 2009. One of the crew members from the first crossing, a diver named Tamas Hamor, had to sail another boat across along the same route, and Jennifer decided to join him.

“I was waiting for cataract surgery so there wasn’t much I could do, so I figured I might as well swim,” Jennifer said.

The second crossing was much smoother than the first. The conditions were more favorable, the seas calmer, the weather better. The trip took only 21 days.

She’s doing it again, this March, for the third time. “Most people dream of crossing the Atlantic their whole lives. We’re doing it for the third time in 18 months,” Jennifer said. Hamor joins her on this third journey as Captain of the 42-foot catamran, “Jamie.”

Was there a desire to set the record straight? For Jennifer to prove she’s not only the first woman to swim the Atlantic but the first woman to make a sport out of it? Nah. She simply does it because she loves it. We caught up with the 57-year old at home in Aspen, Colorado where she lives with her 150-pound malamute, Hank for a little Q&A.

What is AC3?
AC3 stands for “Atlantic Crossing 3.” What a lot of people don’t know is after my first crossing last January 2009, I swam it again that spring, leaving Cape Verde in April and arriving in Trinidad in May. The boat had to go across, so I figured I’d go with it.

Why do you want to do it again? And again?
Maybe I don’t know why and that’s okay. It’s a call to sea. It was love at first sight and second sight so I’m going again. Touching the rock at Brava at Cape Verde, the island where I start off the coast of Africa, I touch it and I turn and face the Atlantic. It is an amazing sight that I will never get over. On land I could run through anything … and I did. But the ocean, you can’t. The ocean dictates it, you don’t.

Is your route going to be the same? From the Cape Verde Islands to Trinidad?
It’s entirely dictated by the winds, the current, and the weather. Again, the ocean dictates what our route will be. On the first crossing, we’d planned to land in Barbados and got blown 1,000 miles off course and ended up off the coast of Northern Brazil. From there, we sailed north to Trinidad.  This time, we will have a climatologist giving us guidance all the way across as to updated weather. Last time it was a problem because our iridium didn’t work so we didn’t have a satellite Internet connection. That was unfortunate because then we would have to call on satellite phone and have someone else interpret weather online. Hopefully our systems will work this time so we have more accurate weather information.

Tell us about AC1 and your first crossing.
The first crossing was January to Feburary 09. We had a 48-foot catamaran. The winds were so high we were drifting sometimes at 8 knots. The seas were high and some days I swam in waves up to 30 feet. I loved it! The Captain was nervous about me being out there so I had to convince him, but those were my favorite days. The waves were so big that sometimes the only part of the boat I could see was the top of the mast. And a rescue diver would have to come out and get me–it was way too dangerous for me to swim close to the boat on my own power. I didn’t have fins or anything like that to aid me.

Did you ever get scared?
No, not really. I don’t get scared. I’m just so in the moment and I just love it, just being in the sea. It doesn’t scare me at all.

Reports said you were blown over 1,000 miles off course on that first crossing.
Our plan was to go to Barbados which is the most direct route across, 2,100 miles—that was our plan. But then when we went so far south we ended up off the coast of Brazil and then sailed north past Venezuala and ended up in Trinidad. The trip took 25 days. We drifted but the winds were so high that it pushed us. You can’t turn around in 30 foot seas or you’d be underwater. After we landed in Trinidad, I wanted to swim some channels because I didn’t get in as much mileage as I wanted. So we sailed to Tabego. My idea was to swim from Tabego to Trinidad. Then the Captain decided to switch anchorages, and the boat got pushed onto a reef, took in water in both hulls, and sank right there in the bay. It was a horrible, horrible thing.

You were criticized by the media for swimming only a few hundred miles of the total distance.
What people don’t realize is you can’t just stop a boat in the middle of the ocean. You can’t drop anchor. In fact, there were days the waves were so big and the currents so strong they had to put the engines in reverse just to keep from losing me out there.

So you didn’t swim confined by a shark cage as was reported by the Associated Press?
No. That shark cage lasted all of an hour before it was destroyed. I was not tethered to the boat in any way. It was a huge risk of me getting separated from the boat, but it was important to me to swim on my own power.

What about the second swim? Did anyone even know about it?
I didn’t even tell people I was going. I was waiting for cataract surgery. Tamas [Hamor] was the diver on the first crossing and he had to bring his monohaul over to the Caribbean before hurricane season started. That was April/May 2009. The conditions were much better. We sailed, we did not drift. I asked him if he would take the sails down and let me train just 2-3 hours a day. There isn’t a better place to train for the Atlantic than in the Atlantic. We started in Cape Verde and had a much better route to Trinidad. It took 21 days. I guess I thought of it more like a training swim.

That’s crazy that there was so much media hype after the first swim and no one even knew you went and did it again?
No, no one knew about it except my husband and family and friends.

Didn’t you have any desire to set the record straight after the media was so critical about the first swim?
No, I really don’t like or want publicity. I just want to be out in the ocean. I always say I need webbed feet,  not a web site! I wish I was a mermaid.

What’s the plan for AC3?
Crossing the Atlantic is something some people dream about their whole lives! We’re going the third time in 14 months. I consider myself very, very fortunate.

What are you doing to train?
I’ll head down to Florida for a training swim in mid-February. Otherwise, I’m just home in Aspen training at the Maroon Creek Club pool. I like training at altitude. I like swimming in a heated outdoor pool during the winter. I hike a lot, too, and workout at the gym. There’s just something about the altitude that prepares me for anything.

So what happens next?
The boat will be shipped at end February from Florida to the Canary Islands. For them to sail the North Atlantic is very sketchy in the winter so it’ll be loaded on top of one of those big huge freighters. It usually takes two weeks to offload in Las Palmas, Canaries. They’ll do some provisioning there, but most everything will be loaded in Florida because it’s so much cheaper for supplies. If we’re drifting, we have to prepare to be out there for so many weeks, so that’s really important. From the Canaries they sail it down to Cape Verde off the Coast of Dakar. That’s where the huge rollers come off the coast of Africa and I just hate it when I’m not in them.

When are you planning to leave?
Late March, hopefully. We have to make sure we leave plenty of time to cross before hurricane season starts.

What are your hopes and expectations for this next crossing?
If there’s one thing the ocean taught me, it’s not to have expectations. I’m really excited about our crew — a very young and talented group of people. English will the be the official language on the boat, but I expect I’ll learn a little Hungarian, French and Spanish, too.

Good luck, Jennifer!