4-Man Relay Across The Gulf Of Finland

Courtesy of Roman Karkachev, Gulf of Finland.

On October 20th, Roman Karkachev of St. Petersburg, Timur Falomkin of Tomsk, Andrey Zamyslov of Moscow, and Anton Kutuev of Murmansk completed a 4-person relay across the Gulf of Finland from Yelagin Island of St. Petersburg to Kotlin Island. It was a cold, real cold 25 km relay in the water that started at 7°C and finished at 9.6°C. It was a massive challenge where the foursome had to endure multiple immersions.

Nuala Moore calls the relay a stunning performance.

Karkachev recalled, “We started with 30-minute legs, but then we switched to 20 minutes so the time available for recovery was
reduced from 90 minutes to 1 hour. The back-to-back immersions over the 9 hours 52 minutes 40 seconds in the Gulf of Finland was very challenging in such cold water. Each of us swam a total of 153 minutes.

After the first stage, we were all shaking for 90 minutes, yikes. Then we decided for 20-minute legs while we almost managed to recover within an hour. We all finished, swimming together.”

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