A record-breaking swim attempt by athlete adventurer Ross Edgley will be filmed as he sets off from Margate harbour tomorrow (June 1).
Ross is setting out to make history by swimming around the entire coastline of mainland Great Britain. The swim will take 100 days and Edgley won’t step on land for the entirety of it.
The Great British Swim starts in Margate harbour and is scheduled to end under London’s Tower Bridge.
Along the way, Ross will battle some of the fiercest tides in the world around the British coastline, transit some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and attempt to complete a huge 30-50km swim per day. During the swim, Ross will only stop when he is on a support boat to eat and sleep and then wait for the right time to dive in again.
Teaming up with Red Bull Media House, the longest circumnavigation island swim in the world will be captured in weekly five minute vlogs which viewers will be able to watch on the Red Bull YouTube channel every Thursday over the next 100 days. The first episode is available today (May 31) as Ross gets ready to embark on this epic adventure.
Ross will consume over 1.5 million calories, and complete up to 40,000 strokes a day to finish the challenge. Only one man has swum from the most southerly point of Britain in Land’s End, to the most northerly point in John o’ Groats… and that’s just half of what Ross is expected to do.
Ross said “Without question, this is the toughest thing I have ever done, but at the same time it’s also the most unique and exciting. Alongside Red Bull, I want to re-write the rules in terms of what is physically possible for human endurance and inspire others to push themselves beyond what they thought possible. People may look at this and think why? But I look at it and just think, if I complete it, it could be the greatest achievement of my life.”
The swim in numbers
- Total distance: 2,500-2,700km route
- Total time: 100 x 12 hour days, 1200 hours swimming total
- Up to 40,000 strokes per day, and 2.4 million strokes in total
- Swimming further than the English channel every day, for 100 days
- Consuming 10,000 to 15,000 calories per day for 100 days
- Consuming over 1.5 million calories total: +230,000 grams of carbohydrates, +45,000 grams of fats and +41,000 grams of protein
To watch how Ross gets on during The Great British Swim, head to https://www.youtube.com/user/redbull