Michael Oram
Principal of
Dover Sea School
Age 73
RYA/DoT Yachtmaster with
commercial endorsement
RYA instructor for motor cruisers & powerboats
RYA/DoT powerboat examiner
RYA Theory, GMDSS, Radar, First Aid & Diesel instructor.
I have been teaching boating and navigation skills for the past 37 years.
My other business involvements are:
A Recoginsed escort pilot since 1982 registered for Channel swimming & other forms of accepted unorthodox English Channel crossings and similar events. To date I have escorted over 1000 Channel crossings.
Delivery skipper power & sail,
Diesel engineer & Electronics installation engineer
Proprietor of Pedro Boats UK, Dover Sea School, In partnership for Seacraft & CS&PS
President of the Channel Swimming & Piloting Federation (CS&PF), which my wife and I started in 1999 for assisting Channel swimmers in their attempts to swim to France.
I have been teaching people how to handle boats for the past 55 years and have been the Principal of Dover Sea School for 36 years.
Angela, my wife and Lance, my son, and I look after and run Pedro Boats UK, Seacraft and Channel Swimming and Piloting Services (CS&PS). as well as Dover Sea School.
We are based in Ramsgate at with our main office at 12 Vale Square and work from our Ramsgate Harbour unit "The Watershed" situated on Ramsgate harbour's Eastern Crosswall. See our location page.
Our Sea School is RYA registered with its office and classroom situated in the Watershed.
In addition to our sea school we are Channel swimming Escort pilots, have a fleet of specially prepared open water rowing gigs, are available for safety, filming work and skipper charter plus we do boat deliveries.
We have been organising London to Paris rows (both indevidual record attempts and originally the races) for the past 30 years. We know the way, we know what is needed and we know how to set up and organise our rowing events on a safe and successful basis.
We organised and escorted the "Top gear " episode when they took their cars across the Channel. We Towed and escorted Christine Blackely when she water skied from Dover to France. We set up and escorted John Bishop's crossing when he rowed the Channel in his Paris to London Triathlon in Febrauary 2012. We have organised the safety side of many other filming events and crossings.
I have been escorting cross Channel swimmers and other unusual crossings like rows and kayaks etc since 1970, personally accompanying over 1000 crossing attempts. The pilots that have and are working with us on our vessels have escorted over 1700 attempts in total.
My successes include escorting the many successful record swims including past 6 record holders for the fastest swims, plus Paul Rush's 3-way swim in 1987 (6 new records) and Alison Streeters 3-way swim in 1989 I escorted Christoph Wandwatsch's world record solo swim in 2005 of 7 hours 3 mins 52 seconds, Peter Stoychev's New World record swim of 6 hours 57 mins and 50 seconds in 2007. Trent Grimsy swim in 2012 , who is the currant World record holder with a swim of 6 hours 55 mins. I escorted Yvetta Hlavacova's fastest crossing by a woman 7 hours 25 mins 15 secs in 2006. and my swimmer held both the Oldest man and Oldest woman records, plus a Record 4 way relay swim --(Des Renford's Australian team) and the Royal Air force Belgium to England relay, and many others. My swim success rate is about 75%. I hold the record for the greatest number of escorted crossing by any pilot involved in Channel swimming to date. In 2005 I had the honour of being inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (IMSHOF) as a Channel pilot in recognition of my success encouranging and piloting swimmers across the English Channel and my work in forming the CS&PF and on the administrative side of Channel swimming.
I have escorted various rowing attempts, Kayaka's and canoes, anphibious cars, paddle board crossings, windsurfers, jetskies, microlights etc.
Our vessels and pilots are registered with both the French and English Coastguards.
I have written articles and training supplements for various parties including Motor Boats Monthly magazine and our sea school & the CS&PF. Angela and I have been delivering craft all over Europe for 40 years and have a wealth of experience to call on. I am registered with the British and French Coastguards as a Channel escort pilot and is well known in this field.
Angela Oram .
Behind every man is a good and powerful woman, my wife Angela is mine. She has spent many years runing the office - trying to keep me and the team in line and organised me. She has looked after the sea school / office / swimmers and house. She is a keen boating person, a qualified nursing sister and a an excelant cook.
When time and business allowed her Angela has crewed and accompanies me on our swims, races, deliveries crossings. We have spent a lot of time doing boating afloat around Europe and the Med
