Grantham-born Endurance swimmer Ross Edgley has announced that he will make a second attempt at setting the record for world’s longest continuous swim.
Edgley made his first attempt at the record in September 2022. He dove into Loch Ness–just outside of Inverness, Scotland–aiming to swim swim 100 miles (160 km). That would have set the world record for longest continuous swim in tideless water.
He ultimately fell short of his goal, stopping at 49 miles (79 km). Wearing a wetsuit, Edgley swam continuously for 52 hours and 39 minutes without touching land or boat. He swam through temperatures as low as 41 degrees Fahrenheit. During the swim, he endured rain and winds up to 20 knots and called the swim the “biggest challenge of his career physically and mentally.”
For his second try, Edgley is venturing south. He’s set to swim Lake Trasimeno, in the Umbria region of Italy. It’s the fourth largest lake in the country. Despite its surface area, it’s a shallow lake, with an average depth of 4-5 meters. That’s a stark contrast to Loch Ness, which has an average depth of 132 meters.
In May, Emilia-Romagna, a region in northeast Italy, experienced massive flooding. It rained 19.6 inches in 15 days–more than half the region’s annual average rainfall. This month, the first stage of the Giro Donne–a women’s World Tour cycling race–was supposed to be held in Chianciano Terme, just a 35 minute drive from Lake Trasimeno, but it was canceled due to torrential rain.
The former Kings School student will start his swim on Monday, July 10th. He expects to be in the water day and night until July 14th with a goal distance of 171km.
Like his previous attempt, Edgley is raising awareness about ocean conservation. In 2018, he became the first person to swim 1,780 miles around Great Britain. And though he doesn’t own this record yet, he’s actually already in the Guinness Book of World Records. In 2016, He completed a rope climb the equivalent of Everest’s height in 19 hours which earned him a spot in the record book.
For this swim, the 37-year-old is supported by PhD Nutrition, including the company’s Director of Performance Solutions, Professor James Morton. In addition, the company is making a three-part documentary series (available on Youtube and Amazon Prime) on Edgley’s preparation for the swim.
Edgley wore a wetsuit during his first attempt, which sometimes impacts whether or not records are ratified. In his announcement, Edgley gave no indication as to whether he’d be wearing a wetsuit for his Italian swim. One of the major factors in his decision to stop his first attempt was “health concerns relating to cellulitis caused by a wetsuit rash.”
Ahead of the challenge, Edgley said “I learned a lot of lessons in 2022 at Loch Ness but everything is coming together for me this time round. It’s going to be the toughest thing I’ve done so far but it’s looking positive.”
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