'Sea Hawks' breaks record in open water swimming

A six-member team of relay swimmers from Mumbai on Thursday touched the Arabian Sea coast in Mangaluru, breaking the Guinness record for open water swimming. The team ‘Sea Hawks’ covered 1,031 km (557 nautical miles) starting from the coast near Gateway of India on November 26, passing through the Goan waters, before ending their lap at Tanneerbhavi beach here.

With this, the team has broken two previous world records. The first is that of a team of 200 relay swimmers in Ireland, United Kingdom who had entered the Guinness Book of World Records covering 684.75 km in 2009. Prior to that, Night Trains, a team of swimmers from America had a world record for the longest six-member open water swim of 505 km.

Shekhar Kale, an expert swimmer from Swimming Federation of India (SFI), was the independent observer, who will submit a report to the federation documenting and ratifying the swimming expedition of the Hawks. It will be later submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Paramveer Singh, a wing commander of the (Indian Airforce) IAF and team leader said that the feat, titled ‘Swim of the Century’ sponsored by IDBI Bank, was undertaken with the sole purpose of paying tributes to the martyrs and victims of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

The other members of the team were Manav Mehta, a 16-year-old student of Class 11 at Podar School in Mumbai; Vicky Tokas from the IAF; assistant sub-inspector of police Shrikant Palande; ex-IAF Gulupili Narahari and Rahul Chiplunkar, a swimming coach. Subhodh Sule was the navigator on board a boat.

Previously, the Sea Hawks, with different swimmers, had swam across River Ganga for the causes Swachh Bharat, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and also the Clean Ganga mission.