Author. Celebrity. Influencer. Water polo player. Swimmer. Adventurer. TV personality. All describe Ross Edgley who wanted to swim further than anyone else in history on a non-stop assisted swim.
He achieved his goal, far far away from his native Grantham, England.
Edgley chose the fast-flowing Yukon River in western Canada where he swam 510 km last week in the 9°C (48.°F) water, wearing a 7 mm wetsuit. He started at the river’s source at 8 am on June 16th and stopped short of the Canadian-Alaska border on June 18th evening, constantly swimming for 54 hours 45 minutes, always progressing westward with the current. Edgley posted, “We did it: the world’s longest non-stop swim in the Yukon [with] no stopping, sleeping or touching land. For now, I’m going to chill and celebrate with the most epic team ever assembled (Ger Kennedy, Chris Morgan, and Thomas Kofler) on a river whose heroics saved me from white water rapids, bears, wolves and hypothermia.”
Morgan kayaked through both of the first night and second night where he admittedly got extremely fatigued. Kofler reported, “Chris did a tremendous kayaking job. Also, the local pilots knowledge was spot on – their reading the water was truly key to success, spotting the most favorable currents and avoiding too-shallow waters with dangerous rocks underwater.“
The water temperature was officially 8.6°C at the start of the swim and gradually went up almost linearly to 14.6°C at the finish. The temperature was 9.8°C at hour 5 and peaked at 15.1°C at hour 40.
While extreme fatigue did set in during the unprecedented river swim, his only wounds were on the back of his legs where his thick wetsuit chafed and cut into his popliteal fossa (see photo above on right).
Prior to his start, Edgley’s support team had a large meal of local moose and bear meat.
Edgley will next appear on “Shark vs. Ross Edgley on Nat Geo TV, airing June 30th at 10 pm and streaming on Disney+, starting July 1st.
© 2024 Daily News of Open Water Swimming
“to educate, enthuse, and entertain all those who venture beyond the shoreline“
A World Open Water Swimming Federation project