Early this week, the story of Jennifer Figge swimming "across" the Atlantic Ocean surfaced. Nearly immediately, skeptics began crunching the numbers and it was painfully obvious she didn't come close to doing many of the things for which credit was being given. The erroneous nature of the reports comes basically in the distances. When the AP originally reported she swam 2,100 miles, they were calculating how far her boat traveled. In all actuality, Figge probably only swam around 250 miles, if that.
Members of her crew have been coming to her aid in the aftermath, correctly pointing out that no one ever explicitly stated -- from their camp, at least -- that she was to swim the entire distance. You see, you can't exactly drop anchor in the middle of the ocean. Thus, her boat never stopped, so when she got in the boat to rest, eat, avoid bad weather, or escape Portugese man-o-war attacks; said boat just kept humming along across the ocean.
In fact, the farthest she ever swam in one day was 25 miles, and that was when she was being helped by a strong current.
"Some of the more sensational stories made it sound like she got in the water at point A and never stopped swimming, like Nemo, until she got to Trinidad," (Manager David Higden said Monday.Some days she was only in the water for 20 minutes or so, according to reports. Also of note is that she was swimming in a cage that would protect her from sharks. Apparently, though, that's all it kept out:
"That wasn't the case, and it never was supposed to be the case.
"The plan all along was for her to swim a little bit every day and then get in the boat."
"Whales literally came up to her," Higden said. "She swam with dolphins some days."Finally, the plan was never to make the news of an incredible athletic feat. It was, instead, more about the adventure, according to Higden.
"Jennifer once told me, 'This is about the romance, not the science,' " he said. "She loves to be in the water.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-11-2009 @ 6:06PM
kmh2078 said...
Wow! She's already taken the news clippings from last fall off her facebook site so nobody (or so she thinks) can dispute her claim that "she never said she was going to swim" the whole way! Are you kidding me? She had press release stationery printed with her picture and the tag line "First Woman to Swim Across the Atlantic!" She must be unaware that things hang around FOREVER on the Internet.
She should just take her lumps and admit that it didn't work out the way she wanted and yes, maybe she was a little un-forthcoming in her contacts with the press. HELLOOOO!!!!!!
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2-11-2009 @ 6:11PM
kmh2078 said...
Here's some more proof: This post was made last October by Hal Higdon - the father of Figge's PR person, David Higdon.
www.trainingpeaks.com/bbs-forum/forums/printer-friendly.asp?tid=42094
Do you see where it says she doesn't plan to swim the entire way, just when she feels like it? Ooops, neither do I.
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2-11-2009 @ 6:18PM
kmh2078 said...
Here's another one - this one came from her son
www.flagworld.com/news/?p=8468#more-8468
Apparently her son thought she was going to swim the entire way also last November? (I guess he wasn't in on her little secret either: that she never intended to swim the entire distance).
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2-11-2009 @ 8:46PM
daniel said...
okay the first and only accredited swim accross the atlantic ocean was by a french male who ate swam slept on a northern current and it is a okay to say he swam accross the atlantic ocean , then along comes a women who following the same rules as this gent and bingo the crazies racists come out the woodwork saying the women has to abide by a different set of rules. ocean liners chooose different current to route there wares accross the atlantic and jennifer prefered warm water current and she did not use the shark cage for it cut her foot with five stiches the day before the her endeavor begin on final practice and also she went barefoot when the french gent use fins. yes she went on a different current though after a six week delay it begin a the peak of the northeastern trade wind season. it was like climbing a mountains and missing the nice weather and have to go up in a storm. and you have to stay put for period of times to get up the mountain . jennifer ran into very foul weather which created hugh waves and hugh winds and fast times. but also times where with out a shark cage and only a shark pod emitting signals that can fail alot of times on sharks. it was a life or death call to cancel certain days but she made it accross following the exact same of rules accredited to the only male who swam accross the ocean exactly the same as jennifer did accomplish. but today the negative worshippers blind to reality and totally bias to women are really saying the only french male accredited didnt not swim accross the atlantic because they have become judge jury when they have no idea they are really saying the french man swam accross the ocean but one problem he is accredited with swimming the atlantic ocean. maybe being hypocritics is there reality and i am sure alot of folks hope one day you see the light of truth for you only have one walk on this earth and it is so sad your walk is in darkness. hurray jennifer you did it and they can never take away your dream accomplish of swimming accross the atlantic ocean.
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2-12-2009 @ 2:11AM
Bob said...
Wow, daniel, that was a really moving, passionate argument against...no one. I've read every single comment about her in the Fanhouse pages, and no one BUT YOU compared Figge to LeComte (spelling?). If you would READ what people said, instead of bull-rushing into your sexist rant, you would understand that the problem was the HUGE discrepancy between what was originally CLAIMED and what was actually DONE. People were thrilled and amazed by this story, and had nothing but praise for this SWIMMER who just happened to be a WOMAN; but when they realized they were duped, they lashed out at the LIE, with no regard for the sex.
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2-12-2009 @ 2:21PM
bugs2bugs said...
Totally agree with Bob's comments about Daniel's pointless rant. Figge's accomplishments _might_ stand on their own if they had been represented as such from the get-go. But it's blatantly written everywhere that she intended to swim the entire distance at the outset, so if that was not her intent she needs to be a lot more forthcoming about why she didn't correct the misrepresentations. Also, the trip was supposed to start in December, why did it not get underway until January? She said she wanted to finish in 57 days, which sounds like she meant to do the whole thing. Why did it get cut so short? There's so much to the story that isn't getting told, I think she's trying to spin it for whatever she can to save some face with the sponsors. Otherwise she might be in trouble financially if they asked for their money back. As far as the sexist angle on this, I don't think anyone cares and in fact would be rooting for her if she could achieve something significant. Her behavior and the bogus AP story just put such a bad taint on the whole event I fear she'll be pretty much a laughing stock for years to come regarding this. It would be a good source for an investigative story as to how this all unfolded--what was her original intent, when did it change, how did the AP story get past any sort of credibility testing, what can be done to improve quality control from supposedly reliable information sources?
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