Swimmers warned over crossing busy city shipping route

ALERT ISSUED AFTER PAIR CROSS CATTEWATER

- By CARL EVE

'OPEN water' swimmers are being urged to think twice about where they choose to swim after two men crossed one of the city's busiest shipping routes, narrowly avoiding large boats and yachts.

Cattewater Harbour is known as a busy commercial port with a designated shipping channel and people are prohibited from swimming within the Cattewater at any time unless with express permission from the Harbour Master, granted occasionally for organised swim events.

Richard Allan, harbourmaster at Cattewater Harbour Commissioners, said each year his office receives multiple incident reports from ship's Masters and Pilots involving swimmers impeding the navigation of large commercial ships.

Mr Allan decided to highlight the issue by posting worrying images of the two hardly-visible swimmers, who had chosen to cross the busy waters which separate Mount Batten from Queen Anne's Battery.