Shark Freediving

Just received an email from Frederic Buyle that William Winram did what William Trubridge wanted to do. Remember this post, where I tell about the plans of William Trubridge doing the Arch in Dahab in constant no fins style? Well, it seems that some other William beat him to it! Read the following press release.

Historic Dive for World Freediver William Winram

Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt, June 1, 2007 – Six months after his unassisted 78-meter dive in the warm waters of Makadi Bay, Egypt, no-fins specialist and champion freediver William Winram took the Arch at the Blue Hole in Dahab, Egypt this afternoon.

A natural occurrence, the Arch is a submerged passage between the Blue Hole and the rest of the reef at a mere 60 meters of depth, long by 30 meters.

Winram descended into the Blue Hole at 4p.m to enter the Arch only wearing his wetsuit and a dive mask, no propulsive equipment such as fins. He disappeared from Natalie Avseenko’s and Fred Buyle’s view at 50m of depth. Fred, former world champion and renowned underwater photographer and Nathalie were 2 of his 3 safety freedivers present for this historic event. He reappeared at the other end and ascended under the watchful eyes of Patrick Schnorf. Fred who was present to witness and photograph this historic event was quoted ” it was the most amazing and terrifying thing to witness how insignificant William was dwarfed by the magnitude of the Arch when he disapeared”

The dive took 2 minutes and 36 seconds for Winram to complete after which he gave his safety freedivers a clean surface protocol, to indicate he was alright. Tired but happy, Winram who is currently training in Geneva, Switzerland for the upcoming Indoor Freediving World Championships (held in the beginning of July in Slovenia) arrived just four days ago, making his short preparation for this achievement rather intense, both physically and mentally.

Later this year, he will attempt a world record to achieve a minimal depth of 83 meters in the discipline of constant weight without fins, on a single breath and without the use of any propulsive equipment.

That’s just an amazing dive if you think about it! Now the big question remains; did William Winram come up with this idea after reading that William Trubridge wanted to do this dive? It makes an interesting story about a growing rivalery between the two William’s, especially now that William W. also announced that he will try to get the no fins world record on his name. And by the looks of this dive, he’s for sure capable of doing it!

Update: Fred provided me with the two excellent photo’s of William doing some freediving in Dahab. As always they look great! Fred also told me that “William was planning the dive since last june, so it’s not the fact that the other Will announced it that made him rush to Dahab,
the trip was planned before you announced it”. Still I think it sparks an interesting competition between two excellent world class freedivers and we will probably hear a lot more about these two.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 10:02 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.