Melbourne (44 hours 30 minutes) – 17 to 18 April 1931
Brunswick Baths
This endurance swim took place at Melbourne’s Brunswick Baths, just six days after her 44-hour swim at Adelaide.
Mr Samuel Carey, President of the Brunswick Swimming Club, had hosted Mercedes and her husband on an earlier visit to Melbourne in February when they came to complete arrangements, and he and Miss Tremaine also looked after and fed Mercedes during the actual swim. Volunteers were secured to monitor the swim and produce the official log, and an electric phonograph was provided for continuous music throughout the swim.
Melbourne Argus, 18 April 1931
Caption reads: Miss Mercedes Gleitze entered the water of the Brunswick Municipal Baths at half past twelve o’clock yesterday morning to attempt to break the endurance swimming record of 44 hours which she established in Adelaide last week.
Image taken in Australia pre 1955, therefore out of copyright.
The swim started at 12.30 a.m. on Friday morning, 17 April and finished at 9.00 p.m. on Saturday evening, 18 April, in front of a large crowd.
The effortless use of breaststroke throughout the two days was a noted feature in the media reports of the swim (Melbourne Argus, Melbourne Age, and Sporting Globe). Although she had a bad time around 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, the officials on poolside talked her through it until she came out of her lethargy naturally.
It was also reported that she suffered from severe abdominal pains in the early stages of the swim for about three hours. It was suggested in the newspaper reports that she hadn’t yet fully recovered from her swim in Adelaide six days earlier, but that the way in which she completed the last lap indicated that she had a reserve of strength.
Mercedes commented afterwards that she felt full of energy at the finish of the swim but on being taken out of the water her body had reacted, as usual, to the difference in gravity between air and water and temporarily went limp. However, she soon readjusted to being on dry land and was back to her normal fitness after a good night’s sleep.
This was Mercedes’s final event in Australia before returning by steamer to England and then on to Ireland where she had arranged with the Galway Chamber of Commerce to swim across Galway Bay.
