Two new distance figures are being celebrated in the wing foiling world this week, both set by 24-year-old New Zealander Jeremiah McDonald during a single continuous session off Giske, Norway. His team reports that McDonald covered 501.7 kilometres inside 12 hours, holding an average speed of 22.57 knots, then kept going to reach 805.1 kilometres by the 23 hour 37 minute mark, averaging 18.4 knots across the full effort. Both are being described by his team as new world records for the sport. McDonald was sponsored by Trace for the attempt, which was tracked live using the Trace app throughout.
This is a significant physical feat, as a wingfoiler stands on a board with a hydrofoil fixed beneath it while holding a wing which is separately gripped with both hands throughout.
The location itself played a part in making the attempt possible. Giske sits far enough north that summer nights don't bring real darkness, just long daylight running into extended twilight, and that stretch of near-constant light gave McDonald the conditions to keep pushing for the better part of a full day.
McDonald's foiling career didn't start in New Zealand. He'd been rowing and adventure racing at St Paul's Collegiate in Hamilton, then went to Rarotonga in 2021 to work as a kitesurfing instructor for sponsor North Actionsports. It was there, over three months, that he first got into wing foiling properly, a stretch that ended up steering the direction of the next several years. He made his debut on the world tour in 2022 and has been racing internationally ever since.
Asked why he took the challenge on in the first place, McDonald kept it simple: "I wondered if I could do it, so I wanted to find out." That curiosity carried him through two very different low points during the attempt. Physically, the hardest stretch came in the final three hours before the 12-hour cutoff, pushing for maximum speed to bank that first record. Mentally, the toughest patch came much later, in the last 90 minutes, when he was cold, drained and, in his own words, "completely out of it." Looking back on the balance between the two, McDonald says it "was a mental challenge, much more than it was just physical." He put a lot of that down to simply never getting to let go of the wing, no equivalent of leaning back against a sail or easing off a kite bar mid-session, just continuous two-handed effort from start to finish. Along the way he also managed a longest unbroken run of 172km on the foil, and gybed 369 times over the full attempt.
He wasn't managing it solo. Partner Chantelle arrived in Norway a week before the attempt to be there in person, while family back home stayed on the phone through the night to help keep him talking and focused. Out on the water, a safety boat and a small crew with medical training kept watch for the duration.
Reflecting on the finished attempt, McDonald said: "I feel like my decision to come out here and take on this challenge has paid off. I wasn't sure I could do this, but I feel a huge sense of pride and relief that I was able to pull it off and go so far."
