AN intrepid teenager is aiming to become the youngest ever person to swim through the world's third largest whirlpool.
Matthew Michie, 15, will attempt to swim through the gulf of Corryvreckan off the west coast of Scotland on Sunday.
Matthew, a pupil at Carnoustie High School, has been training every day of his school holidays for the dangerous challenge -including swimming across the River Tay.
The Corryvreckan whirlpool is formed by the tides from the east and west of Jura meeting off the northernmost tip of the island where the Corryvreckan is located, funnelling in to the spot at great force.
An underwater basalt pillar known as "The Old Hag" then forces the tidal water upwards, as the water smashes off the sides of the channel, resulting in the whirlpool.
It can cause waves of up to 30ft and is famous for almost drowning George Orwell when he went for a swim there when writing the classic 1984 on the Isle of Jura.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article