A GROUP of 12 women and one man are gearing up to tackle a 16 mile swim from Arran to Troon to raise money for the RNLI and Jo Walters Trust.

The Jo Walters Trust was set up by Lucy Johnston her sister, who is taking part in the challenge, in memory of Jo who died age 28 in a cycling accident.

The relay swim is expected to take part at the end of the month and is expected to take the two teams, who call themselves the Arran TrooNautics, a gruelling 12 hours to complete.

Arran TrooNautics are mostly all new to open water swimming but have trained hard for the past year to get to the point where their coach and experienced cross Channel swimmer, Chris Sifleet, is confident they can make the crossing.

Some of the team will be in wetsuits but many will not, enabling the swim to meet the criteria to be logged with the British Long Distance Swimming Association.

Each swimmer will swim for an hour and then be replaced by the next swimmer, before taking to the water again to complete the 12 hour journey.

"We all have different strengths and are facing varying fears, including the cold, stamina, jellyfish, sea sickness, dark water, basking sharks to name but a few but we are all committed to complete the task and have a good party at the end," said Annie Howie, whose idea it was to take on the challenge in 2015 when she heard about a group rowing from Arran to Ayr and thought she would like to swim the same piece of water.

Annie and her friends quickly recruited a team which has trained together, and individually, in a variety of ways, including swimming a combined 16 miles in the pool for Sport Relief, and doing a one mile swimming competition in Loch Ken.

Lucy, who set up the Trust, hopes this will inspire others to follow Jo’s example of getting out and making the most of our natural surroundings.

She said: "The commitment has been huge, training twice a week for over a year, with most of us having young families and jobs.

"Training has involved rats, eels, seals, slime, chilblains, wetsuit burns, fear of what lurks beneath the dark water, countless lonely lengths and early mornings and late nights, to name but a few.

"This has not been a walk in the park but fingers crossed we have done enough to see us safely through to completion and reach our target of £10,000 for our charities."

Some of the money raised from the swim will go to fund young carers in Ayrshire to go on an Outward Bound course and the rest of the money will go to the RNLI.

The motivations for doing the swim are varied but many of the team have young children and want to prove to themselves they can take on the challenge.

They also want to raise awareness for families to make use of the sea and the beautiful beaches that are so accessible to us in Scotland.

Donations to the fund can be made by visiting https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/arrantotroonswim.

The swim will take place one day between September, 25 and 30 when the weather conditions are right with no more than force four wind speed and the water as calm as possible. The team will have 48 hours notice of the swim date.