16-Year-Old American Swims the English Channel

A 16-year-old from New Hampshire successfully swam across the English Channel, a 33-mile swim she called an "adventure." Vera Rivard of Springfield left Dover in the UK in the morning and arrived on a beach near Calais, France, just before midnight on Tuesday. She's the second American to cross the channel this year, AP reports. "As she leaves the beach in England for her English Channel attempt, I will be the proudest parent ever! Not if she finishes, not how fast she swims, but that she was brave enough to start," Rivard's mother, Darcie DeBlois-Rivard, wrote on Facebook, where she posted photos and video of the feat.

A support boat accompanied Rivard across the channel through favorable conditions. Rivard's swim took more than 14 hours and cost her family around $15,000, about a third of which was covered by donations and sponsorships. The trip included a two-week quarantine in Dover. Rivard completed a long-distance swim around Manhattan island earlier this year. She hopes to swim a third major open water course to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California later this year. (A swimmer crossing the English Channel last year couldn't seem to stop.)