Former Dunedin man Dr Stanley Paris (74) has given up his bid to become the oldest man to swim the English Channel, but his plans to circumnavigate the world non-stop in a yacht are still on track.
He pulled out of the channel swim recently after two attempts at the six-hour qualifying swim proved too cold for him, causing numbness in his left arm.
In an email to the Otago Daily Times, he said that chapter in his life was now closed.
Dr Paris, a world-renowned physiotherapist who lives in Florida, where he founded the University of St Augustine, made unsuccessful attempts to swim the channel in 2008 and 2009, pulling out because of cramp and nausea.
His yacht Kiwi Spirit, for his solo circumnavigation, is being built in Maine and will be launched next July.
Some 16 months after that he would try to break the 150-day solo record set by 54-year old Dodge Morgan on American Promise in 1986.
Dr Paris said he would be aiming for about 120 days.
If all went well with the technology he was proposing, he "might well be the first to do it entirely green - no diesel or gas".
His route for the trip would take him from St Augustine, Florida, during its 450th anniversary year, around Bermuda "to gain the miles needed in the northern hemisphere and then to the South Atlantic beneath South Africa and Australia".
He would pass Bluff en route to Cape Horn and might call into Bluff harbour for an hour or two.
However, he could not be "touched", nor could he receive a newspaper or loaf of bread on such a stop, he said.
