William Trubridge Breaks World Record

Sinking to the Bottom to Rise to the Top William Trubridge Breaks World Record

Dean’s Blue Hole, The Bahamas – This morning, with just a single breath, New Zealand free diver William Trubridge has successfully broken his own unassisted free dive world record of 101 metres.

Diving at Dean’s Blue Hole, the world’s deepest known salt water blue hole, William successfully reached a depth of 102m – comparable to about one third the height of Auckland’s Skytower – gathered a marker at the bottom and resurfaced without assistance. In a tense few moments on the surface, William successfully completed the post-dive protocol signalling to the judge that he was ‘ok’. The judge waved the white card and the celebrations erupted, both in the water and back home in New Zealand.

William is now the proud holder of an incredible 18 free diving world records, and continues to push the boundaries of what is possible for the human body.

Steinlager Pure partnered with TVNZ to broadcast the dive nationwide so that New Zealanders could watch one of the world’s top extreme athletes.

Trubridge said that knowing the dive was being broadcast back at home made him all the more determined to set this new record. After coming so close in 2014, he told New Zealand “I owe you a world record.” This morning, he made good on his promise.

“It was huge sense of relief. To get this record in the bag is a dream!” says William, of his record win. “I started to feel a little bit of a fade halfway up, I wondered if it was going to go pear-shaped again. I could feel the support of so many behind me, but knew I had to stay in the present, I was nearly there.”

William’s parents, Linda and David Trubridge were watching their son’s dive live from the TVNZ Breakfast couch this morning. “We’re just so proud of him, each time he dives. They’re the longest four minutes of our lives, but we’re just so happy he’s finally notched this one up!” says David Trubridge.

Michael Taylor from Steinlager Pure says, “Every time William dives, he shows us what the human body and spirit is capable of, and inspires us all to push beyond the limits of what seems possible.”

“By having the courage to defy the odds, Trubridge embodies the type of New Zealander that Steinlager supports. We are incredibly proud of his achievement today.”

The Dive in detail

• The attempt took William 4 minutes and 13 seconds

• In the first 10m, the air in his lungs is still buoyant and William pulled hard with his arms to descend, he took about 7 long, hard strokes to pull himself down

• After about 20m the air started to compress, making him less buoyant, this is when William stopped kicking, and let gravity take over

• He tucked his arms in, put his chin to his chest, closed his eyes and sunk deep into the darkness

• William was then dropping at a rate of roughly one meter per second

• William relied on his watch to let him know how deep his was, an alarm sounded a few meters before the bottom, he slowly reaches out for the rope, gently slowed his decent, he reached out for the marker attached it to his wetsuit and made one slow pull on the rope to start him on his ascent back to the top

• Being careful to take small movements – at that depth and pressure it would be easy for William to damage his internal organs with any sudden movements – William slowly made his way to the surface

• His safety divers met him at around 30-35m, swimming alongside him to the surface

• William surfaced cleanly, grabbed on to the rope and held himself out of the water, gulping in sharp deep breaths, with his crew calling him to breathe

• In a tense few seconds everyone watched as William completed the post-dive safety protocol. In order to validate the record William then had to complete the protocol of removing his nose clip, making eye contact with the judge, giving the ‘OK’ symbol with his thumb and forefinger and announcing to the judge “I’m OK”. William successfully completed this and was then given the white flag – signifying a successful dive and a successful new World Record of 102m!

ends

William Trubridge & Free Diving Quick Facts:

- 36 year old William Trubridge is based in the Bahamas, living near the massive underwater sinkhole called Dean’s Blue Hole, a 200 metre deep cavern that’s perfect for free diving
- William is the current world free diving champion and holds the record for 102m unassisted free dive
- William recently broke two world records at Vertical Blue event in May, first diving to 122m then 124m the following day. These dives were in The Free Immersion (FIM) discipline - where he uses a rope to assist with descent and ascent.
- The pressure at the depths William dives to could easily crush untrained lungs
- By the time he hit the marker at 102m, his chest will have shrunk to less than half it’s original size, his heart will be beating at a mere 25 beats per minute (well below the average resting heart rate of a fit adult).
- William can hold his breath for eight minutes (the average is around one minute, maybe two at a stretch before an overwhelming urge to inhale kicks in)

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