Jeremiah McDonald stood on his wing foil off Giske, Norway, and covered more ground under wind power in a single day than most sailors would over a full ocean passage. The 24-year-old from New Zealand set two new distance marks for the sport this week: 501.7 kilometres in 12 hours at an average of 22.57 knots, and 805.1 kilometres across 23 hours and 37 minutes, averaging 18.4 knots for the full attempt. His team is calling both new world records for wing foiling. McDonald was sponsored by Trace for the attempt, which was tracked live using the Trace app throughout.
“I wondered if I could do it, so I wanted to find out,” McDonald said of his reason for taking on the challenge. The attempt tested him physically in the three hours before the 12-hour mark, and mentally in the final 90 minutes, when he was cold, exhausted and, in his words, “completely out of it.” He summed it up afterwards: it “was a mental challenge, much more than it was just physical.” He posted a longest unbroken run of 172km on the foil, and gybed 369 times over the full attempt.
A safety boat and a small crew with medical training watched over him on the water throughout.
“I feel like my decision to come out here and take on this challenge has paid off,” McDonald said. “I wasn’t sure I could do this, but I feel a huge sense of pride and relief that I was able to pull it off and go so far.”
