ENDURANCE swimmer Steve
Redmond has rounded the Fastnet in a 12-and-a-half-hour marathon swim for an autism centre for adults in west Cork.
Up to 500 people were waiting on the pier in Schull at 8pm last night when the Ballydehob swimmer and his support boat arrived after the 26-mile swim.
A relieved Steve said this morning: “I had been trying to do this swim for the past month but couldn’t because of the weather.”
He said up to 2,500 was raised through the swim yesterday for the Cork South West Association for Autism.
The group is planning to develop a residential centre for adults with autism in the west Cork area.
Yesterday’s swim took the 46-year-old record-breaking swimmer past Sherkin Island, Cape Clear Island and the Fastnet Rock before arriving into Schull.
He left Baltimore at 7.30am yesterday morning, accompanied by friends on a support boat.
Among those on the boat was Noel Browne, who had accompanied Steve to Japan twice in recent months where he did the final leg of his Seven Oceans Challenge in the Tsugaru Strait.
He said: “It was a perfect swim yesterday. It had been weighing heavily on my mind that I couldn’t do the swim because of the weather because I had promised the association that I would do it to raise funds for them.”
Noel Camier from the association said this morning that the members were “thrilled” that Steve Redmond had come on board to help them.
He said: “It is not even about the money — it is about getting the awareness out there for the need for a centre for people with autism.”