Ultra athlete Mayank Vaid, who tried to swim around Hong Kong Island twice in a day, eyes Double Arch 2 Arc Triathlon first
- Vaid once held the record for the fastest Enduroman Arch 2 Arc and was recently foiled in his attempt at the double HK360 Swim
- In August, the 47-year-old Hong Kong lawyer will become the first person to attempt to race from Marble Arch to the Arc de Triomphe and back
Ultra swimmer Mayank Vaid became the first person to attempt to swim around Hong Kong Island twice in one go last week, and is now gearing up to become the first to take a stab at the Double Arch 2 Arc Triathlon.
The HK360 Swim is one clockwise solo lap of Hong Kong Island, starting and ending at Sai Wan Swimming Shed. For the HK720, Vaid was required to circumnavigate the island twice, heading anticlockwise for the second lap.
However, Vaid’s history-making attempt was cut short about three kilometres from finishing the first lap because he was being constantly battered and pushed back by the force of the sea.
“Eight feet below I could see some rocks and the rocks had markings on them,” Vaid said of the moment he had to call off the attempt.
“I was basically swimming on that marking for about 10 minutes. It was full on … We never trained for getting hit in the face by the tide for six hours in a row.”
The 47-year-old Hong Kong lawyer started the swim at 7.30pm on Tuesday, April 23 and could not have made a better start.
He reached Cape D’Aguilar, the halfway point, one hour and 45 minutes ahead of time.
“I was supposed to be there at 4am, but I got there around 2.10.”
Hong Kong has two tidal windows, and swimmers attempting to circumnavigate the island need to reach Cape D’Aguilar before the tide switches to ensure they are not fighting the waves.
Vaid’s early arrival meant he missed that important tidal change.
“I got there too early, and I couldn’t fight it [the waves] and I couldn’t stay there because the water was pushing me back. So basically from Cape D’Aguilar to about 8 or 9am I was just fighting. It really saps your energy.”
By the time Vaid called off the swim, he was an hour behind schedule. Taking into account that he arrived at Cape D’Aguilar one hour and 45 minutes ahead of time, the tide had slowed him down by almost three hours.
In open-water races, swimmers cannot touch the support boat or kayak. For this event, Vaid would have been allowed to exit the water after the first lap, but the time out of the water would have counted towards his final time.
In November 2021, Vaid became the first person to complete the HK360 on two separate occasions. His second swim was over in 14 hours and 35 minutes, four hours faster than his 2020 attempt.
“I’m definitely going to try [the HK720] again; I’ve got [the Double Arch 2 Arc] this summer and then we’ll see.”
In August 2019, Vaid broke the record for the fastest Enduroman Arch 2 Arc, an ultra-distance triathlon known as the planet’s hardest triathlon.
He ran from Marble Arch in London to Dover, before swimming from Dover to Calais and then cycled from Calais to Arc de Triomphe Paris in 50 hours and 24 minutes.
That record has since been beaten, twice, but Vaid remains the fastest Asian to have finished. The standard Arch 2 Arc ultra triathlon is 463.5 kilometres.
In August this year, Vaid will become the first person to attempt the Double Arch 2 Arc, performing all stages of the gruelling race twice.
The Double order will be slightly different from the regular version.
Channel swimming rules do not allow athletes to launch the swim in France, so Vaid will start with a swim from Dover to Calais and then when he gets to France, turn back.
Once in south England, he needs to jump on a boat or train to France, where he can start the cycle from Calais to Paris and back again.
The final leg is running from London to Dover and back.
For Vaid, the target is to simply finish.
“It’s going to be super cool because the double channel swim makes it super hard; ultra triathletes are used to 10-, 15- or 20-kilometre swims, so there’s a lot of unknowns,” he added.
