From left, Longport Mayor Nicholas Russo, Coach Joe Haney, Around the Island champion swimmers James Haney and Patrick Armstrong, his dad Patrick Armstrong, and Commissioners Jim Leeds and Dan Lawler.
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
LONGPORT – A few weeks ago the Longport Beach Patrol relinquished its five-year championship title to neighboring Margate, but a member of the Longport Beach Patrol emerged victorious in another great open water event on Aug. 9 – the Jim Whelan Open Water Festival’s 56th Around the Island Swim.
The event hosted by Green Whales, Inc. of Brigantine for the second year, honors the late New Jersey Senator and mayor, who was an Atlantic City lifeguard, teacher and swimming coach at Atlantic City High School. The 22.75-mile marathon swim around Absecon Island started and ended at the Atlantic City High School boathouse on Fairmount Avenue.
The Longport Board of Commissioners proclaimed Aug. 17 as Team Thunderdome Day in Longport to honor the four high school students who swam as a relay team and wound up winning the entire event. The relay team was open to high school athletes who are also lifeguards.
Team Thunderdome included swimmers Patrick Armstrong, James Haney, Gavin Neal and John Sahl. Two of the teenagers are students at Atlantic City High School and two go to Ocean City High School. Haney and Neal are members of the Brigantine Beach Patrol, Armstrong is on the Longport Beach Patrol and Sahl guards Atlantic City beaches. Their coach is Joe Haney, James’ father, who is a former member of the Atlantic City Beach Patrol.
During the presentation, Joseph Haney said the team swam neck-and-neck with their competitors – master swimmers Rob Montgomery, Bobby Puch, Daniel Killinger and Frank Geraci of the Totuga Golden Striders. Two individual athletes – John Zeigler and Robert Gatto – failed to finish the race.
“They started out with the water at 79 degrees and flat, but by the time we got to the (Absecon) Inlet, young Patrick headed out with 8-foot swells and the water temperature dropped to 55 degrees,” Joe Haney said. “The water stayed 55 degrees until we hit the Longport inlet and fortunately it went up to 79 degrees.”
Haney said the team swam “shoulder-to-shoulder” with their older competitors entering Longport and wound up winning by 6 minutes.
Touted as one of the toughest swims in the world, Haney called their effort “a remarkable feat.”
Mayor Nicholas Russo said each swimmer swam 5.5 miles in grueling conditions, winning the race in 8:02:51.
According to the Green Whales, the Around the Island Swim started as a $100 bet between two beach patrol members and became one of the premier open water events in the world. After a hiatus, the Whales resurrected the race in 2019 as part of the Jim Whelan Open Water Festival, which raises money for youth swimming education.
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