Chief Petty Officer (ret’d) Ashley Semmens is set to become the first person to swim the English Channel like a Royal Australian Navy clearance diver would - by finning on his back for more than 15 hours.
Preparing for the swim is as much mental as physical.
“I think probably 75% of it is mental… I have a level of physics fitness that will get me there or across…. It’s going to be probably upwards of 15 hours in water that's about 14 degrees.”
The swim, which is set for June next year during England’s “best” weather, will raise money for the Navy Clearance Divers Trust. The trust is an organisation that is close to Semmens’ heart as a retired clearance diver who was medically discharged from the Navy in 2021.
Semmens, who served in the Navy for 19 years, developed post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of his experience in Afghanistan, during which a Bushmaster he was travelling in was hit by an improvised explosive device. During the deployment, he was also targeted by – and narrowly survived – a Taliban sniper.
“In 2021 I was medically discharged with some pretty significant PTSD, along with a few other bits and pieces. Literally I went into work one day and then left that day. Never put a uniform on again, never went to work again, lost my community, my tribe… So having lived through that experience, that's where I saw the value in things like the Navy Clearance Divers Trust,” he said.
Semmens, who now works with the Trust as a liaison officer, has also seen how important the trust is from the other side of the picture.
“People will often contact me for a myriad of different reasons that they've got going on in their lives…. [That’s] beauty of [the Trust] is that it's not restricted by the procedural limitations. What I mean by that is, if there's a veteran clearance driver in need, they can make contact and potentially within [hours], they can have that sort of assistance that they require,” he said.
To help raise money for the trust, Semmens has entered into an agreement with a prominent US director to turn his story into a documentary, half of the proceeds of which will go straight to the Trust.
Funding the documentary is Semmens’ next big challenge, as he expects that his half of the funding for the documentary will reach $150,000, an amount that he needs support to raise.
For information about Semmens and his plan to swim the English Channel click here.