FIU
The Walk on Water contest currently
A strange race takes place every year in the USA. But no one has ever taken her as seriously as a young artist who overcame everything and everyone.
For 35 years, every November, dozens of students have crossed the lake on the Florida International University campus, as part of the “Walk on Water” competition.
It all started with architecture professor, Jaime Canavé, who decided to create the competition as a fun challenge for his students, who build their own floating shoes and then compete in a race across the lake, taken from .
The competition quickly became a stage for fearless artists, who even performed dances on water. But none was more successful or adventurous than Charles W. Oldrieve, a former tightrope walker from Boston. While other “water pedestrians”, as they were sometimes called, gave only short demonstrations, Oldrieve covered long distances in his canoe-shaped wooden shoes.
This daring artist made crossing water courses an artistic spectacle and a habit of his. He even crossed waterfalls and walked to islands off the coast of Boston. He even claimed to have plans to cross the English Channel, but he never implemented them.
Oldrieve’s shoes had fins at the bottom. “When the foot is brought forward and the shoe forced through the water, the fins fold against the bottom until the moment the step is taken, at which point they descend and present a surface that pushes the water”, reported the Boston Globe in 1889. “With their help, the walker is able to advance, for without these small fins he would not make any progress”.
The “water walker” could travel up to 8 kilometers per hour, and in January 1907, Oldrieve decided to accept a bet with a friend. There were around 5 thousand euros at stake. He began his most ambitious adventure: walk the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from Cincinnati to New Orleans… in less than 40 days.
No sooner said than done. The more than 2500 km that separated the two places were covered within the expected time. Bet won, 5 thousand euros in your pocket and a bizarre record broken.
