The ‘Mallorca 360’ swimming challenge

RICHARD KRUGEL has set himself a challenging goal: to swim around Mallorca.

He started swimming at approximately age four. He competed nationally and internationally and later joined the South African Navy.

He decided to travel and try his hand at working on Super Yachts. He travelled to the US, where he worked in Fort Lauderdale, but then ended up in Antibes, where he worked on luxury motor yachts.

He then decided to work a land-based job, still with yachts, but not as permanent crew. He ended up in Mallorca and fell in love with the island.

While living there, an unfortunate event took the life of his only younger brother back in South Africa on July 4, 2003. The news devastated him.

Luckily he had very good friends that comforted him and took him to a beautiful quiet beach in Mallorca to mourn. He went for a swim and got a crazy idea: “One day, I will swim around this entire Island in the name of my brother.”

He wants to attempt this swim in stages, starting on September 20.

His swim route is roughly 360km long, circumnavigating the entire island. The start and end is planned near the main marina of Palma. He wants to swim for about 18 to 20 days, swimming two stages per day of roughly 10km each in an anticlockwise direction.

The two stages will be split up into daylight hours and he will beach between every stage. A land-based vehicle will carry supplies and after the last stage of every day he will stay over at a location close to there. A support boat and crew will follow him all the way for safety and visibility to other vessels in the area.

He will not touch the boat and beach between every stage, except for two or three places on the island where beaching would be impossible and the land based support crew cannot reach him. During those days/stages he will get on board the support boat, GPS locations will be taken and he will start the next stage from those locations.

He will swim for the Allen Graham Charity for Kids and hopes to generate a decent amount of donations. They can be found at: http://ift.tt/1q0Agg0 and on his Facebook page: http://ift.tt/1D448Cv.