In an unprecedented achievement, a man has completed three crossings between the California coast and Catalina Island, swimming for more than 51 hours nonstop.
The historic feat was achieved by French open water swimmer Stève Stievenart—nicknamed "Stève the Seal"—between Tuesday evening and Friday morning last week, sports newspaper L'Equipe reported.
Stievenart had already completed a "one-way" crossing between Catalina and the Southern California mainland in January 2022. The island lies just over 20 miles offshore from the coast of Long Beach in Los Angeles County.
In June of that year, he also completed a "two-way" crossing, swimming from the mainland to the island and back again—a feat that took the Frenchman more than 28 hours.
Now, with his latest achievement, Stievenart has completed a three-way crossing, which involved swimming from Catalina to the mainland, returning to the island, and then going back to the mainland again.
This feat, which has never been achieved before, took the Frenchman 51 hours and 18 minutes of virtually nonstop swimming.
Stievenart, 46, has completed several other impressive feats as an open water swimmer. In 2021, he participated in a 75-mile, eight-person relay across the icy waters of Lake Baikal in Siberia—the world's largest freshwater lake by volume—according to the World Open Water Swimming Association.
That same year, he completed a double circumnavigation of Manhattan in 21 hours and 15 minutes as part of the "40 Bridges" event, covering a distance of around 57 miles. He has also crossed the English Channel, between the United Kingdom and France, two times.
As a result, the Frenchman has completed the so-called Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming. This is a marathon swimming challenge consisting of three historically important routes: the English Channel, the Catalina Channel and the circumnavigation of Manhattan.
Stievenart has adopted a diet consisting of large quantities of oily fish, inspired by the diet of seals. He says this allows him to build up fat reserves that help with swimming for hours in cold water.
In his triple crossing of the Catalina Channel, Stievenart was accompanied by around 15 people—including judges and his assistance crew—aboard a boat that followed him while he swam.
The Frenchman covered his body with Vaseline to reduce the friction on his body and Sudocrem to combat the effects of the saltwater on the skin.
The swimmer suffered from back pain throughout his journey, to the point where he almost gave up after the end of his first crossing.
"I'm not going to be able to swim another 20 hours like this," he said after making the first crossing. But he persevered and eventually completed the swim.
"I'm very happy to have completed this three-way. It's a great achievement," he told L'Equipe. "I thank my team, because without them it is obvious that I would never have been able to accomplish this."
He went on: "The end was really very complicated to manage. It was terrible. My mouth was all swollen, and I couldn't breathe. Not to mention that there was a lot of current during the last kilometer. I drifted, I was afraid of missing the finish line. It was endless. I kept wondering when it was going to stop, I had to constantly adapt. It's crazy to see, and that's also what drives me, how the body does so much with so little."
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Aristos is a Newsweek science reporter with the London, U.K., bureau. He reports on science and health topics, including; animal, ... Read more
