Oceans Seven

Not to be confused with any of several movies in the Ocean's film series.

The Oceans Seven is a marathon swimming challenge consisting of seven open water channel swims. It was devised in 2008 as the swimming equivalent of the Seven Summits mountaineering challenge. It comprises the North Channel, the Cook Strait, the Molokaʻi Channel, the English Channel, the Catalina Channel, the Tsugaru Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar.^[1]

North Channel

Cook Strait

Molokaʻi Channel

English Channel

Catalina Channel

Tsugaru Strait

Strait of Gibraltar

Oceans seven

The record for the fastest cumulative time for the completion of the 7 swims is held by Scot Andrew Donaldson, with a total swim time of 63 hours, 2 minutes.^[2]

The record for the fastest completion of all seven swims is held by Bulgarian Petar Stoychev who achieved it in 173 days, completing on 14 August 2024.^[3]

The record for the youngest ever person to complete all 7 swims is held by New Zealander Caitlin O'Reilly who was 20 years, 7 months, and 15 days old upon completion.

List of Oceans Seven swims

• The North Channel: between Ireland and Scotland, 34.5 kilometres (18.6 nmi)
• The Cook Strait: between New Zealand’s North and South Islands, 22.5 kilometres (12.1 nmi)
• The Molokaʻi Channel (also known as the Kaiwi Channel): between Moloka’i and O’ahu, 42 kilometres (23 nmi)
• The English Channel: between England and France, 33 kilometres (18 nmi)
• The Catalina Channel: between Santa Catalina Island and Los Angeles, 32.3 kilometres (17.4 nmi)
• The Tsugaru Strait: between the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, 19.5 kilometres (10.5 nmi)
• The Strait of Gibraltar: between Spain and Morocco, 14.4 kilometres (7.8 nmi)

List of successful completions

The LongSwims Database maintains a list of swimmers who have completed the challenge:^[4]

	Name	Date completed	Nation	Notes
1	Stephen Redmond	14 July 2012	Ireland	First ever to complete all seven swims. Total time 2 years 344 days; cumulative time 104 hours 19 minutes.[5][6]
2	Anna-Carin Nordin	8 July 2013	Sweden	First woman to complete all seven swims. Total time 2 years 290 days; cumulative time 182 hours 39 mins.[7]
3	Michelle Macy	15 July 2013	United States
4	Darren Miller	29 August 2013	United States
5	Adam Walker	6 August 2014	United Kingdom	[8]
6	Kimberley Chambers	2 September 2014	New Zealand
7	Antonio Argüelles	3 August 2017	Mexico	[9]
8	Ion Lazarenco-Tiron	27 January 2018	Republic of Moldova	First from a landlocked country
9	Rohan Dattatrey More	9 February 2018	India	First Asian[10]
10	Abhejali Bernardová	24 February 2018	Czech Republic	[11]
11	Cameron Bellamy	21 June 2018	South Africa	First South African[12]
12	Lynton Mortensen	14 November 2018	Australia	First Australian[13]
13	Thomas “Fleppy” Pembroke	14 December 2018	Australia
14	Nora Toledano Cadena	30 March 2019	Mexico
15	Mariel Hawley Dávila	30 March 2019	Mexico
16	André Wiersig	9 June 2019	Germany
17	Elizabeth Fry	25 August 2019	United States
18	Attila Mányoki	26 August 2019	Hungary	Fastest cumulative time (64 hours 35 minutes) until Donaldson, 2023[14][15]
19	Jonathan Ratcliffe	10 December 2019	United Kingdom	[16]
20	Jorge Crivillés	1 January 2020	Spain	First Spaniard
21	Adrian Sarchet	29 February 2020	Guernsey	[17]
22	Prabhat Koli	1 March 2023	India
23	Dina Levačić	14 March 2023	Croatia	First Croat, youngest (27 years)
24	Herman van der Westhuizen	16 July 2023	South Africa
25	Andrew Donaldson	27 July 2023	United Kingdom	Fastest total time (355 days) until Stoychev, 2024;[18] Fastest cumulative time (63 hours 2 minutes).[14][15] Note: the previous record for total time was 2 years 60 days.[15]
26	Stephen Junk	10 September 2023	Australia
27	Kieron Palframan	6 October 2023	South Africa
28	Bárbara Hernández Huerta	14 June 2024	Chile	[19]
29	Mark Sowerby	29 June 2024	Australia	[20]
30	Zach Margolis	13 July 2024	United States	[21]
31	Paul Georgescu	27 July 2024	România	First Romanian[22]
32	Petar Stoychev	14 August 2024	Bulgaria	First Bulgarian.[23] Fastest total time (173 days from 14 March to 2 September 2024: Stoychev repeated his English Channel swim after completing Oceans Seven to reduce total time)[18]
33	Nathalie Pohl	15 September 2024	Germany	First German woman.[24]
34	Caitlin O'Reilly	24 October 2024	New Zealand	Youngest ever swimmer to complete the Oceans Seven at 20 years, 7 months, and 15 days.

See also

• Long-distance swimming
• Open water swimming
• Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming