A DEDICATED teenager has raised more than £2,000 for the RNLI after completing a gruelling open water swim.

Andy Corcoran, from Cheshire, was looking for something to focus on following his crucial GCSE exams this year.

It was whilst Andy was visiting his family’s holiday home in Abersoch that he decided on a swimming challenge to raise money for the Abersoch branch of the RNLI.

A rugby player by nature, Andy had suffered a hamstring injury and thought that swimming might offer him the best chance of a quicker recovery.

With this in mind, the 16-year-old opted to swim from the Warren Beach in Abersoch to St Tudwal’s island, a distance of approximately four kilometres through choppy seas.

Despite relatively little swimming experience, especially on this scale, Andy managed to complete the swim last Monday (20 August) in two hours and is well on track to raise £2,500 for the RNLI, a charity he has admired all his life.

Speaking after his tiring endeavour, Andy said: “I completed the swim in rather worse conditions than I was hoping for.

“There was great support from the local crew and lots of well-wishers on the beach.

“Due to tides and currents I ended up covering 5km, and swallowed much more seawater than is ideal.

“It seemed like a great opportunity to raise some money for charity.

“The RNLI is an amazing organisation, as I am sure you will agree.”

Andy’s mother Tracey was impressed by her son’s hardiness.

“He’s been enamoured with the RNLI ever since he started visiting the boathouses as a little boy,” she told the Cambrian News.

“He’s always loved them, I think it’s a dream of his to be a lifeboatman.

“He’s always had this need to push himself and this is just typical of him.

“He tried swimming and just told me he didn’t find it that hard, that it came naturally to him.

“He’s always been very diligent and very intelligent; he achieves what he sets out to do.

“There’s been a lot of donations, many of the contributors are actually unknown to us, and he should feel very proud of himself, just as we are.”

A few days after completing his swim, Andy found out he had achieved mainly As and A*s in his GCSEs and will now move on to sixth-form college.

He also said that he was “pleasantly surprised to not feel like death” in the days after his swim.

A spokesperson for Abersoch RNLI thanked the talented teenager for his efforts.

“This was a well-planned event and took a lot of training to complete,” they said. “Well done Andy and congratulations on your GCSE results!”