Into the void

In a single breath, William Trubridge enters a world where external worries and pressures of everyday life are washed away.

Beneath the water’s surface is where the Kiwi freediver finds peace and tranquillity and learns the true limits of his body.

“The sensation of freediving and what it has to offer is unique. It teaches me so many lessons and qualities about myself,” he says.

“You need patience and discipline and to be able to push yourself to overcome that suffocating feeling of wanting to breathe. You need to crack the whip on your own back.

“But it’s a beautiful way of integrating in the underwater world and with all its creatures.”

Freediving is when divers hold their breath under water, submerging as deep as possible without breathing apparatus.

William, 35, is a world champion having set many records; in 2010 in constant weight without fins he submerged 101 metres down Dean’s Blue Hole, in his current hometown, the Bahamas. A year later he set another world record for a free immersion dive, pulling down on a line, to 121 metres down the same blue hole.

A deep connection with water runs strong in William’s family. When he was 18 months old his parents sold the family home in the United Kingdom and sailed to New Zealand through the Caribbean and across the Pacific Ocean. Over eight years the boat, Hornpipe, was home. He was home-schooled in the mornings; afternoons were spent diving with his brother to find rare shells, snorkelling, spear fishing with his father and exploring
exotic jungles.

In 2003 William tried freediving after learning it was a sport. He was “immediately hooked,” he says. “Underwater you’re weightless; there’s no gravity. There are few sounds, smells and tastes. You’re stripped of external stimuli and it’s easier to listen to your thoughts.”

William’s training regime is made up of dives in Dean’s Blue Hole, lengths in a pool with limited breathing and yoga to enhance lung volume.

He admits physical and mental training come hand in hand.

“The worst moment is just before the dive starts, that’s when the doubting voices are heard the loudest” he says. “But the water helps wash them away.”