Ryan Stramrood

From Openwaterpedia

Ryan Stramrood is an extreme open water swimmer from Cape Town, South Africa. Stramrood was a member of the successful Patagonia Extreme Cold Water Challenge which was a series of three extreme cold-water swims at the very tip of South America by five South African men: Ryan Stramrood (38 years), Kieron Palframan (37), Toks Viviers (47), Ram Barkai (53) and Andrew Chin (43). It was nominated for the 2011 World Open Water Swimming Performance of the Year and won 3rd place.

Stramrood, Palframan, Viviers, Barkai and Chin are all founding members of the International Ice Swimming Association and take inspiration from, inter alia, Lynne Cox's book, Swimming to Antarctica. During the Patagonia Extreme Cold Water Challenge, they successfully completed three extremely cold-water swims in 12 days: 3.2 kilometers double crossing of the Beagle Channel, 4 kilometer crossing of the Strait of Magellan (8°C) and 2.5 kilometers around the southern most point of Cape Horn 7C.

All the swims were done in rough water, against strong currents and in water less than 8°C.

Stramrood has also successfully crossed the English Channel in 2008, was one of the first South African men to have crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in 2005 (and again in 2010), has taken joint 3rd place in Alaska's tough Pennock Island race in 2009, completed Australia's Rottnest Island swim and many other challenging swims in and around South Africa. These include two 1 mile ice swims in temperatures below 5C.

Videos

References

• Ram explains The Patagonia Challenge
• Patagonia Swim Challenge Facebook Page
• Cape Extreme Swimmers
• Open Water Swimming website
• 3 for 3