He’s not underneath arrest — however he positive may use a relaxation.
In September, 49-year-old New Yorker Michael Moreau jumped off the southern tip of Manhattan — and didn’t emerge till he’d swum up the East River, by means of the Harlem and down the Hudson to finish the famed and formidable 28.5-mile loop.
The (flutter) kicker: He did all of it in handcuffs, and in properly underneath 10 hours.
Moreau’s felony-flavored feat earned him two Guinness World Data — one for finishing the longest open-water swim in handcuffs, and one for changing into the primary (and quickest) swimmer to circumnavigate the town’s waterways in shackles.
Why?
“Why do something?” Capri Djatiasmoro, a fellow marathon swimmer and member of Moreau’s help crew, requested. She conquered the identical 20 Bridges Swim Round Manhattan — albeit with the posh of her limbs — on her 63rd birthday in 2014, and mentioned the push of the open water feels as illicit as Moreau’s steel-strapped wrists symbolized.
“After I swim, I’m excessive as a kite,” Djatiasmoro, co-founder of Coney Island Brighton Seaside Open Water Swimmers, mentioned. “I suppose regular individuals, nonswimmers, may relate it to the excessive after a terrific exercise or unbelievable intercourse.”
However Moreau’s moat-ivation wasn’t kink. It was half nautical nature, half unfinished enterprise, half want to probe the outer edges of merman mastery.
“After I began listening to these tales about individuals who had not given up on the chance to essentially check the boundaries, I believed, ‘Why can’t I do that factor?’ That was the start of my journey of making an attempt to determine how I used to be gonna notice my potential,” he mentioned. “And I knew I wanted to do it within the water.”
Born to swim
Moreau, a artistic director on land, has lengthy been a fish in the water.
“In line with my mother and father, I may swim earlier than I may stroll,” he mentioned. “I just about instructed them, earlier than I may even converse, that my want was to be within the water. That’s what I used to be made to do and the place I used to be made to thrive.”
Moreau made waves as a highschool and school swimmer, successful nationwide championships and setting a minimum of one file that also stands in the present day. However he ultimately hung up his goggles — and didn’t decide them up for the higher a part of 20 years.
Then, in his mid-40s, the water known as. Freestyle phenoms like Diana Nyad and Ross Edgley seeped into his social feeds. He couldn’t shake the sensation there was extra within the tank.
“The very first thing that went by means of my head is … that’s wild. Why would you even do something like that?”
Michael Moreau
The problem? Setting a purpose that didn’t really feel like a victory lap of his youth. The answer? Ultramarathon open-water swimming, or typically any non-pool, nonstop outside swim over 10 kilometers.
That’s greater than 430 lengths of a normal 25-yard pool — plus the uncontrollable currents, circumstances and creatures of the pure world. Add in logistics like coordinating boat visitors, studying tides and securing a talented crew for security and help, and the prospect requires the form of psychological and bodily prowess elite lap swimmers hardly ever hone.
“I believed, ‘That is uncharted territory for me. That is one thing that I really feel like I have to pursue,’” Moreau mentioned. “And I form of went out at full power.”
He employed a coach, put his social life on ice and set his sights on one of the crucial treacherous, uneven and marine-life-laden open-water conquests: Hawaii’s Molokai Channel swim, a 42-kilometer deep-ocean course with solely about 100 finishers thus far.
Moreau grew to become one among them in 2024, stroking by means of the night time in 13 hours and 11 minutes — the 14th quickest time in historical past. He surfaced nonetheless thirsty.
“I’m wondering if there’s one thing a bit bit off the overwhelmed path that could be a little bit extra controversial,’” Moreau thought. There was: handcuffs. The jailbird jangles had restricted Egyptian professional swimmer Shehab Allam‘s wrists in 2022. His record-holding 11.6 kilometers was the space to beat.
“The very first thing that went by means of my head is identical factor that I believe goes by means of lots of people’s heads: That’s wild. Why would you even do something like that?” Moreau mentioned.
However the subsequent factor that went by means of his head was an aquatic equation he grew to become decided to resolve: If as much as 90% of a swimmer’s propulsion comes from their arms, how does one swim when their arms are tied? “Then to me,” Moreau mentioned, “it grew to become extra of a technical problem.”
One of the best ways to crack it, he deduced, was to lean on his traditionally sturdy breaststroke kick. And one of the best stage on which to try it, his logic later went, was one of the best metropolis on the earth.
So after crusing previous Allam’s file by returning to Hawaii in handcuffs in Could 2025, Moreau set out, but once more, to do what no man had accomplished earlier than: swim the town’s perimeter in a literal bind. “If I’m in a position to pull this off,” he thought, “this would be the defining second of my open-water profession.”
“Nonswimmers don’t wish to hear about it as a result of they go, ‘Oh my God, you swim within the Hudson River?’ I wouldn’t stick my finger in there.”
Capri Djatiasmoro
Swimming upstream
Like members of any sporting subculture, loads of open-water swimmers pursue maniacal-to-mortals exploits that fly underneath the mainstream radar.
In New York, lovers embark on annual City Swim adventures like circling the Statue of Liberty or front-crawling beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. A few hundred individuals pay $5,500 to tackle the 20 Bridges Swim Round Manhattan, simply one-third of the so-called “Triple Crown” of open-water swimming. And if the one factor a lap across the Huge Apple wets is an athlete’s urge for food for extra, they will do it yet again and loop the town twice.
Then there are the superhuman stunts, like reverse-swimming round Manhattan — that’s, towards the currents — and powering across the island in butterfly. Simply final yr, a neighborhood therapist and artist grew to become the primary to swim across the borough — after which run round it too.
“Nonswimmers don’t wish to hear about it as a result of they go, ‘Oh my God, you swim within the Hudson River?’ I wouldn’t stick my finger in there,’” Djatiasmoro mentioned.
However because the early 2000s, she’s helped set up swims like a 10-miler from Coney Island to Purple Hook, and has solely as soon as been whacked by a seal, sturgeon or one thing else lurking within the nice unknown. “It was very humorous,” Djatiasmoro recalled. “I simply saved swimming. That was it — one smack.”
But even she was alarmed by Moreau’s proposition to tackle the town’s seas in chains. With restricted arm mobility, how would a crew swiftly hoist him, if crucial, out of hurt’s method? “He talked about handcuffs,” Djatiasmoro recalled, “And I mentioned, ‘Wow. Good luck with that.’”
Swimming a marathon distance in handcuffs requires “an adaptation to take away one of many greatest components that may help you in any swim, which is the arms, and put all the main focus and the efforts in your legs and decrease physique,” the previous file holder Allam, 35, instructed The Put up. He recommended Moreau’s effort, including that he anticipated his file to in the future be damaged.
“I understand how a lot effort it takes to be achieved, perhaps greater than anybody,” Allam mentioned.
Locked up and locked in
Moreau wasn’t deterred. He moved flats to entry a 25-yard, 24-hour pool. He educated in tough circumstances off of Coney Island, fueled by the liquid carbs stashed within the buoy that trailed behind.
At his peak, Moreau racked up weekly distances nearing 65,000 yards, or 37 miles. He did all of it with restricted wrists and with out leaving his demanding day job.
“I’m coaching in a pool with a silicone ring tied round my arms and everyone is considering I’m doing this bizarre drill,” he mentioned. “There’s loads of second-guessing. There’s loads of self-doubt. There’s loads of: Is that this even definitely worth the bother?”
However the extra Moreau practiced, the extra he bolstered his physique and thoughts. He repeated visualization workout routines and got here to belief that probably the most mentally paralyzing risks — from motorboats and sharks to useless our bodies and lethal bacterias — had been extra uncommon than widespread.
“You finally learn to adapt your self out of that mindset and notice what it is advisable to deal with is your swimming, the way you’re dealing with the waves, the way you’re dealing with the currents, your respiration,” Moreau mentioned. “You attempt to handle every thing that’s in your management.”
Then, on the morning of Sept. 9, 2025, Moreau locked up and jumped in. His crew — together with Djatiasmoro, his sister, a ship captain, a kayaker and a Guinness World Data officiator — coasted by his facet.
“I used to be euphoric,” Moreau mentioned when he reached Hell Gate, a tumultuous mixture of three tributaries close to Randall’s island, properly earlier than the required time. However his elation didn’t final. Turning onto the shallow, disorienting and reverse-flow waters of the Harlem felt like hitting a “brick wall,” Moreau mentioned.
Even kicking down the Hudson — thought of the “dwelling stretch” with over 12 miles to go and the Statue of Liberty in view — introduced a dangerous twist: Development on the Lincoln Tunnel had created a present that threatened to drag him straight underneath a barge. “I had no thought till after the swim…how dire that state of affairs was,” Moreau mentioned.
(Jail) breaking 10
Nearing Brookfield Place, Moreau’s kayaker relayed thrilling information: If he hustled, he may break 10 hours. Most unshackled 20 Bridges swimmers end in seven and a half to 9 and a half hours; Moreau’s purpose was 11.
“Hell yeah, let’s do that,” he thought. When his sprint-kick to the end clocked a 9 hour and 41 minute time, Moreau mentioned he “let all of it out.”
“It was the fruits of every thing that led as much as it — the uncertainty, the quantity of doubt in my thoughts about: Have I gone previous even what’s humanly potential?” he mentioned. “To have that far-fetched pipe dream — the place actually everyone is telling me, ‘You’ve gone too far, that is insanity at this level’’ — lastly crystallized into actuality…was monumental.”
Trying again, the triumph left Moreau with greater than two Guinness World Report plaques and one case of cellulitis, a painful however treatable bacterial an infection, in each legs. “That is actually a testomony that there’s no restrict to how huge you’ll be able to dream,” he mentioned. “It is best to by no means cease doing that.”
As for his subsequent huge dream? “It could be too early to say.”
