WESTBROOK – A Westbrook woman known for her open-water swimming achievements around the globe has been nominated for an international award, with online voting taking place through the end of the year.

Pat Gallant-Charette, 61, who earlier this year endured more than 100 jellyfish stings and more than 19 hours in rough seas to cross Japan’s Tsugaru Strait, is one of 15 nominees for the 2012 World Open Water Swimming Association Woman of the Year award. According to the group, “the World Open Water Swimming Woman of the Year honors the woman who best embodies the spirit of open water swimming, possesses the sense of adventure, tenacity and perseverance that open water swimmers are known for, and has most positively influenced the world of open water swimming during the year.”

According to the group, “Wherever these individuals ultimately finish in the WOWSA Awards, they are all wonderful role models of the sport, representing the epitome of everything that is cool, right and good about open water swimming.”

Online voting is open at www.worldopenwaterswimmingassociation.com through Dec. 31, with the results to be announced Jan. 1, 2013.

This is not the first award nomination for Gallant-Charette, who the organization refers to as a “Channel Swimming Late Bloomer.” The Channel Swim Association awarded her the 2011 Rosemary George Award for the Most Meritorious Swim of the Year. In 2012, she was selected as one of 101 women worldwide as “101 Movers and Shakers” in the world of open-water swimming.

Gallant-Charette’s nomination from the group reads: “Imagine a sport where at the age of 61, you can be considered to be one of the best in the athletic world. Pat Gallant-Charette, a full-time nurse from Maine, is one such individual. But the road to greatness is never easy and the world’s waterways have always put the hard-working grandmother to the test. Despite the tremendous physiological stress she faces and the long hours she endures as she traverses channels around the world, her smile is as brilliant at the finish as it is in the beginning. Always cheerful and deeply appreciative to her crew and supportive family, Gallant-Charette makes every swim a joy to witness from her marathon swims to local charity swims like Swim For Your Heart. She is currently tied for seventh in the global Oceans Seven rankings after she notched another difficult channel under her cap with a 19 hour 36 minute crossing of the treacherous Tsugaru Channel in Japan. She failed on her first attempt, but insisted on a second try in the foreign land. For her success across one of the most difficult channels in the world, for the obvious joy she brings to the sport and the community around her, for her promotion of Swim For Your Heart and her surge up the Oceans Seven rankings, Pat Gallant-Charette is a worthy nominee for the 2012 WOWSA Open Water Swimming Woman of the Year.”

In addition to being the 14th, and oldest, person to cross the Tsugaru Strait, Gallant-Charette has also crossed the English Channel, California’s Catalina Channel and the Strait of Gibraltar between Morocco and Spain.

As part of her quest to swim the “Oceans Seven,” a group of seven grueling long-distance swims scattered across the globe, Gallant-Charette plans to swim New Zealand’s Cook Strait in February and the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland next September, with Hawaii’s Molokai Channel planned for sometime after that.

With the Tsugaru behind her, Gallant-Charette’s goal of completing the seven swims a feat that so far only one person, Ireland’s Stephen Redmond, has been able to accomplish is well within sight.

“If I can get this one, I know the other ones will be much easier,” Gallant-Charette said before leaving for Japan. “I’m going to see what I’m capable of doing.”

Pat Gallant-Charette of Westbrook is one of 15 nominees for the 2012 World Open Water Swimming Association Woman of the Year award. Online voting for the award is open through Dec. 31. File photo