Did she or didn't she? Questions over woman hailed as first to swim Atlantic

If you've been playing close attention to the papers today, you'll notice many carry the remarkable story of Jennifer Figge.

The 56-year-old from Aspen, Colorado, is being hailed as the first woman to swim the Atlantic, thereby claiming a world record, according to the Associated Press, which is quoted as the source for the articles.

But a closer look at the reported details reveals that if true, Figge really has completed a remarkable feat.

The Guardian says that the endurance athlete took 24 days to make the crossing from the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa to Trinidad, propelling herself across 2,000 miles of ocean. A quick calculation shows that Figge would have had to swim 80 miles a day at least to cover the distance in the reported length of time.

But her business manager, David Higden has admitted that there were about five days where Figge did not even get into the water since the sea was so stormy and remained aboard the catamaran which accompanied her journey.

The AP story goes on to say that Figge woke up most days around 7am and assessed whether the weather was fit for swimming. Her longest stint in the water was about eight hours while her shortest was 21 minutes.

We also know that she had planned to swim to the Bahamas but was blown off course to Trinidad. Such setbacks do bring into question exactly how many miles Figge did swim during her crossing.

So far she has not commented bar her initial quotes to AP. Figge has said however she plans to swim a further 900 or so miles to the British Virgin Islands from Trinidad, arriving in late February, when her crew will work out the total distance she swam.

So is it too early to declare world records?

Benoît Lecomte from France made the first known solo transatlantic swim in 1998, covering 4,000 miles in 73 days. He was accompanied by boat but swam six to eight hours a day, earning him a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Figge is certainly the first woman to accomplish a feat of her kind, but it is debatable whether she swam enough miles to earn the world record title.

Readers have already expressed their suspicion. On the Huffington Post's website, comments have been left questioning what percentage of the journey she completed by boat, and whether her vessel continued to drift at night while she was asleep.

One poster who goes by the name of "gaijinpl" has picked apart the numbers to come to this conclusion: "Impossible. The claim is fraudulent in some way. If you do the math, and know that the north equatorial current maxes out at around 5.5mph, there's something seriously wrong with this story." Gaijinl says she would have had to covered 77.78 miles a day at 9.72mph."With best possible current conditions, that's still a 4.25mph sustained speed. As a good comparison, the fastest any woman has ever swum the English Channel has been 7.5 hours, at a rate of 2.8mph. A sustained rate of even 2.8mph over 27 eight-hour days would also be impossible.

"So, either she's had the world's best set of conditions, or she's a fraud. The boat carried her some indeterminate portion in the right direction. Can I say I ran the NYC marathon if I take the subway part of the way?"

Readers of the Times website are equally doubtful about her achievements. As one commentator on the Huff's site writes, answers are needed "otherwise the idea of swimming across the ocean is really quite meaningless".

It is quite possible that Figge has achieved this exhausting crossing. The American is no stranger to endurance activities, having started them 20 years ago when her son urged her to give up smoking. Her Facebook lists an impressive list of swims and runs, including – if you believe it – a 180-mile run across Mexico where the final 60 miles were completed with a cast on her left leg.

So what is the true story here? Is Figge an extraordinary women with an achievement to be proud of or is there something fishy going on? Or is it that the story was badly reported by news agencies?

Even Higden has said in her defence: "Nobody could swim across the Atlantic. It's physically impossible. It would take literally years."