Great interview with William Winram about his 145 meter Variable world record.
Link: http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/DNTO/ID/2666110466/
The entire CBC show: http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/DNTO/ID/2666109742/
I wrote about the world record here
This is the full video of William Winram’s world record from September 3rd 2013. Congratulation again to our good friend and inspiring mentor.
It was a privilege to be a part of the safety team and see how well William prepared physically and mentally for this event. The organization and safety preparation were very well planned and executed which I have written more about here.
More information:
http://williamwinram.com
www.facebook.com/WilliamWinramPage
www.twitter.com/williamwinram
On September 3rd 2013 William completed an amazing world record dive to 145m in a category called variable weight. I was honoured to be one of the safety divers at this event and got a first hand experience of all that goes on.
The safety team consisted of Andrea Zuccari at 50-60m on scooter, 3 technical divers along the line all the way to the bottom and fellow Canadian Natalie Doduc and myself at 20 and 25 meters.
Natalie and I have dove together several times before and Andrea is extremely experienced and professional, which made it easy during the dive preparations. Everyone knew their tasks which meant we didn’t have to communicate very much and could keep the performance area as calm as possible for William.
All that said it can’t be helped that the setting is busy. There is a doctor and medical staff, platform organizer, photographers, technical divers, safety divers, judges and spectators.
It is impressive how William can keep his mental focus with everything going on around him before the dive.
Being a safety is not that hard if everything goes well, as it did on all William’s warm-up dives and the world record itself. It is still very important to always prepare and breathe up, because you need to prepare for the case where the dive goes wrong and you might need to dive deeper than planned or stay longer under water. My safety depth was 25 meters and I could expect to wait at the bottom for 10 –30 seconds. In all the safety dives we did with William we never exceeded the planned hang time and never needed to go deeper than planned.
Safetying for a world record does add more alertness, because you know how much training, effort and money goes into an event like this. I came up fairly close to William from 25 meters as I needed to make sure he was ok, but I was very conscious of keeping enough distance so I wouldn’t touch him which would get him disqualified. It was evident all the way up that he was strong and wouldn’t need our help. When we broke the surface William completed the surface protocol very quickly and continued to breathe easily. Another dive where the safeties luckily didn’t need to intervene.
From the picture below it is easy to see the happiness for William and his wife Michèle after the successful record attempt.
The organizational job of Andrea and Sergio from Freediving World was incredible. Normally as a safety diver you are asked to help with lots of things, but for this event everything was so well organized and Sergio handled everything on the platform, while Andrea took care of the sled and everything in the water.
Andrea has been coaching William for a long time helping him with equalization and the results speaks for them selves. It is clear to see that the friendship between them also helped William reach his goal.
I have started the equalization course at Freediving World, with Andrea and will be going back for the second class today.
Below Andrea can be seen holding the sign with William.
As extra safety on this deep dive three tech divers were stationed at various depths along the line with the deepest at the bottom. Below are the three technical divers on a deco stop afterwards. The deepest of the divers Jim Dowling on the left were on a re-breather and was fascinating to talk to about his gear and the decompression needed to come up safely.
What a great event to be a part of and a privilege to witness this first-hand and meet so many skilled people.
Links to other posts about the World Record:
The 2nd day of competition is now complete and this was the best day so far. Esteban work hard on getting new moorings dropped in 500 feet of water, so we could securely anchor the platform and the great big Catamaran. The viewing platform from the catamaran was very close to the comp zone so people on the boat could follow the action and cheer for the athletes.
William Winram had a great dive to 91.7 meters with bi fins, even though he came up just short of his 96 meter goal.
This day worked well for everyone, because the wind cooperated with us and the swell wasn’t too big and there was almost no current. The safety team is working well together now, since we have had 5 days of all working together. It is a pleasure to work with the four other safety divers: Ashley Chapman, Ren Chapman, Natalie Doduc and Marc Beaudet. After the 6 hours on and in the waters we all head to Bananarama for lunch.
I just finished watching Breathe, which arrived in my mailbox earlier today.
It is inspirational, funny, informative, beautifully filmed and I enjoyed it throughout.
Dean’s blue hole is spectacular place to dive and I don’t think anyone can watch this movie without being fascinated with freediving and what William is able to do.
I was on the Safety Team for the Freediving World championship at Deans Blue hole in 2009 so this stunning footage brought back lots of awesome memories.
I recommend that you buy
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/44963798]
SYNOPSIS
Martin Khodabakhshian (9-Time Emmy Award-winning ESPN producer) directs and produces this fascinating documentary that truly goes to new depths in the search for man’s physical and mental limits. Breathefollows New Zealander, William Trubridge as he attempts to break his own world record in the extreme sport of Freediving. William attempts to dive completely unaided to a depth of 300ft, almost to the bottom of the deepest blue hole in the world – “Dean’s Blue Hole” in the Bahamas.
Featuring candid interviews with locals who live in fear of the hole, interviews with William’s family members who are in constant fear for his life and stunning underwater footage of William in action, Breathe will literally leave you holding your own breath as William takes us on a journey to the depths of mankind’s fascination with the underwater world.
http://filmworksent.com/Breathe.html
We finished putting the video together this morning for William Winrams 86m Dive. I spoke with William last night and he said “Just to clarify things…the dive was an 87m dive. I went past the plate”. That means Will was only 1m from the, at the time, 88m world record. Because his anounced depth was 86m offically that is what he gets. As promised here is the video of the dive
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE5cstRcUFo]
William Winram dove to an amazing 86m (282 feet) CNF (Constant No Fins) today at the AIDA Freedive World Championship. 86m is a new Canadian, Continental, and Pan-Amerian Record.
You continue to amaze us William!
William is now off to continue his work with Great Hamerhead Sharks in French Polynesia. I am really looking forward to seeing the Video. Check out www.WilliamWinram.com
We hope to have a video of William’s dive up shortly.
Guillaume Nery (Bronze 78m), William Trubridge (Gold 90m), William Winram (Silver 86m)
William Winram does it again!
William has broken the Canadian CNF (Constant weight No Fins) record this afternoon (Nov 28, 2009). Will push the depth record down to 80m (267 feet). Amazing. Congratulation Will.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTACM07daX0]
