Marathon Freestyler Sets Record for Circling Manhattan
A Scottish-Australian marathon swimmer recently set a new world record for circumnavigating Manhattan. On September 19, Andy Donaldson (who, when he is not freestyling, doubles as a motivational speaker and mental-health advocate) jumped into the Hudson River before dawn from a boat near Pier A and began a five hour, 41 minute, and 48 second odyssey that beats by two minutes and 14 seconds the previous record, set by Oliver Wilkinson in 2011. Swimming counterclockwise, Mr. Donaldson made his way around the Battery, up the East River, then to the Harlem River, which joins the Hudson at Spuyten Duyvil, and then south with the outgoing tide down the Hudson to return to Pier A, having covered a distance of 28.5 miles.
He credits the record, in part, to precision timing and entering the water just as the swirling vortex of the three waterways surrounding Manhattan were converging in his favor. “This is one of the most technical swims I’ve ever taken on, with complex tides and currents that can lose you crucial minutes if you’re not in the right place at the right time” he said. “We knew the tides and timing had to align perfectly.”
Ninety minutes in, he said, “I was struggling with heavy arms and the dreaded ‘claw hand,’ ” referring to a condition verging on hypothermia in which a swimmer’s hands go numb, and lose fine motor control as the fingers involuntarily spread apart. The river temperature on that day hovered between 70 and 72 degrees. Immersed in water this cold, an untrained swimmer could lose consciousness.
“I’d been feeling run down in the weeks leading up to the swim, and it certainly caught up with me out there. But when things got tough, I was able to dig deep, knowing we’d put in the work to be ready for this.”
This swim was the culmination of a trifecta for Mr. Donaldson. The so-called Triple Crown of Open Water swimming requires a circumnavigation of Manhattan, as well as crossings of the English Channel and the Catalina Channel in California. The other two legs are both considerable shorter than the Manhattan swim, but take much longer because it is not possible to game ocean currents in the way that it is where three rivers meet. He has also crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, the Kaiwi Channel (between the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Molokai), and the North Channel (between Ireland and Scotland).
As for what comes next, Mr. Donaldson says, “this is only the beginning.”