She said one way was to swim to the Dutch border down the River Scheldt, although the current was very strong and he risked being picked up by German searchlights from the bank.
On Wednesday afternoon, Swim Ireland revealed that the County Down man was tested at the European Short Course Championships in Hungary in December 2007.
Mr Weekes believes Gilbert spent a few days feeding off Dorset to build up enough energy to swim out to the Atlantic Ocean and down to the Bay of Biscay.
Franklin is already the new face of American swimming, a multi-event competitor and a throwback Olympian who turned down big endorsement offers so she'll be eligible to swim competitively in college.
Just seeing a photo of Positano will make anyone who has ever visited long for the days when all there was to do was swim, have some freshly-caught grilled fish, and wash it down with an ice-cold limoncello.
In the showroom you can sit down for an imaginary supper and a jellyfish-shaped "agent" will swim your way that will let you download text and images from the web though we can't honestly picture how this works, or understand why we need Internet access during dinner.