Popular Devon open water swim axed again

A huge backlash of anger and 'hatred' following the cancellation of a popular annual open water swimming event in Devon last year due to weather conditions has led to organisers cancelling it this year and its future is now in limbo. The Exmoor Open Water Swim, a charity event which attracts more than 800 participants, was unable to go ahead last year on September 24, at Wimbleball Lake, due to the weather forecast in Dulverton following the aftermath of Hurricane Nigel.

It was cancelled just two days before the event and fury was sparked after organisers stated on its Facebook page that refunds would not be possible due to its terms and conditions, and having to pay overhead costs for the event. The Exmoor Open Water Swim - where swimmers choose from a variety of options from a 6km course to just 1km - is an event owned by charity Plastic Free North Devon under the company name Twin Moors Ltd, based in Braunton.

One of its two directors is Jo Hibberd who is the event race director and is currently organising the annual charity event Croyde Ocean Triathlon which is taking place this year on July 14. The directors took over the company from friends in December 2022.

Jo said: "When we had to cancel the event last year lots of people were disappointed and we can understand why, but they were nowhere near as disappointed as our team. In my role as race director, I did not personally make the decision to cancel it. It was made on the advice of our safety team.

"I went to the lake on the day the event had been due to take place and the weather was horrendous. There were waves in the middle of the lake so it would not have even been safe for our kayakers who would not have been able to look after the swimmers.

"We are not an elite swimmers event; we are friendly, fun swim and over 50 per cent of participants just want to do the 1km course, so it was absolutely the right thing to cancel it.

"As we had to at late notice, no costs were recuperable and it was making a loss as it was. We just didn't have the money to refund people as more than 75 per cent of our costs had gone, and some people had not read the terms and conditions.

"We did give refunds of over £5,000 to people who had purchased insurance and over 150 people received credit card refunds after lodging complaints.

"We received a huge amount of abuse on social media. I even had abuse when I was in Tesco which was really horrific.

"There was so much hatred and we were even accused of stealing money and all sorts of things - but none of it was true. We are not criminals and didn't make any money from it.

"We organise it for nothing and all the money it makes goes to charity so the comments we received were extremely upsetting. However, there were members of the North Devon community who were very thoughtful, kind, accepting and understanding."

Jo added that before cancelling the event, alternative options were looked at such as hosting it on a different day but it was said to not be feasible as the lake was not available after that date. The website of Exmoor Open Water Swim has now been changed with the home page announcing the cancellation of this year's swim.

It gives people the option of submitting their name and email address if they would like the event to return in 2025.

Jo said: "We have decided not to put the event on this year to have a break, see what the feedback is and look at whether we can recover from cancelling it last year as some people have said they will never do it again. We love the event; it's such a wonderful swim.

"We will be discussing its future in early September and will decide whether to do it again or not, but we can't run it at a loss. It costs quite a lot of money to organise such as toilet hire, the rental of the lake, paying for the safety team, marketing, registration and website management and at the moment the figures don't stack up.

"Outdoor events are risky because they are at the mercy of the British weather so are not for the faint-hearted to organise. We are thinking of putting it on in 2025 but we need more than 800 swimmers to break even. We can't keep putting costs up to take part but all the costs to organise it keep going up and up.

"We would love to do it again and if we do we will offer a discount to those who were down to do the 2023 swim and want to sign up again. We just need a year's break from it to regroup and think if we can make it work and if people will come back."