Last year, Gráinne Moss tried to tick the gruelling Oceans Seven challenge off her bucket list, swimming 55km across Japan’s Tsugaru Strait without ever reaching shore.
This year, she came back with one thing on her mind – redemption. After 12.5 hours in the water, battling powerful currents and freezing temperatures, she finally
did it, becoming the first Irish woman to conquer all seven of the world’s great open-water crossings.
“This year was always about unfinished business,” shares Gráinne, 55, who has lived in New Zealand since 1998.
Oceans Seven has been a dream 39 years in the making, with Gráinne completing her first leg of the challenge when she swam across the English Channel when she was just 17.
“I learned in 1987 that drive can overcome disadvantage,” she muses.
“And it still does.”
When the ocean fought back
Only ever swimming in togs and goggles, she’s taken on oceans so rough, the support crew had to be tied down for safety, been hammered by painful jellyfish stings, pulled out of the water when a shark was circling and finished swims in the early stages of hypothermia. But Tsugaru in 2025 was another beast altogether.
“I got properly caught and couldn’t break free,” she remembers of being in seven-knot currents and not making progress for two hours.
In total, she spent 13 hours in the water.
“It was one of those swims where the ocean reminds you very clearly that you’re not in charge.”
When Gráinne was given another opportunity to tackle Tsugaru this year, she didn’t hesitate to accept.Then, two weeks before travelling to Japan, she smashed her hand into a pool lane rope while training and couldn’t use it for 10 days.
“I remember sitting at the beach café the next weekend with the Washing Machines [a Wellington swim group] and bursting into tears. Not from pain, just from the fear that something I’d worked towards for so long might slip away this late.”
In the end, Gráinne knew she had to try. Travelling to Japan, she tentatively tested her hand in the pool.
“It held up – not perfect, but workable,” she says.
A race against the current
So at 4am on June 19, as the sun rose, Gráinne jumped from the boat and began her swim.
“Even when Tsugaru looks calm, it feels alive,” says the former chief executive of Oranga Tamariki, who now heads up the Ministry for Regulation.
“The water is full of energy and movement under you all the time. It’s what makes it beautiful and so hard.”
For the first seven hours, everything was going well. Then Gráinne saw land and briefly allowed herself to believe the finish might be straightforward. It wasn’t. The current strengthened dramatically, rising from 0.5 knots to 3.6 knots, preventing her from reaching the coast.
“On the boat, the team was starting to get anxious,” she tells.
“No-one wanted a repeat of last year.”
Eventually, an opportunity opened and with every ounce of energy she had left, Gráinne pushed to the shore, finishing with a time of 12 hours and 29 minutes.
“It was not a triumphant run up a beach – just rocks and an unsteady stand. I raised my hand. The swim was done.”
Laughing, Gráinne shares that the hardest part is often swimming back to the waiting boat.
Another 750 metres later, she was finally back on board, exhausted and desperately cold, with uncontrollable shivers. In some areas, the water was just 14 degrees. But then came a welcome she will never forget back at Kodamari Port, she smiles.
“It was extraordinary. Irish flags, banners, flowers and people taking photos. It was thoughtful, generous and slightly surreal.”
The people who helped her make history
She was also reunited with two other athletes, Paul Leonard and Karen Ennis, who successfully swam the Strait that same day. Having all been beaten by its tides the previous year, they’re now part of a very exclusive club of only 52 people worldwide who have completed Oceans Seven.
For Gráinne, though, the achievement belongs as much to her family and team as it does to her. She is eternally grateful to her four children, husband Ivan, parents Philippa and Joe, and her support crew on the boat.
“I couldn’t have done this without the people around me,” she asserts.
So, what’s next? Certainly not slowing down. Gráinne has permission from Tuhoe iwi to swim out and back across Lake Waikaremoana. And next year, she has a 25km swim in Sydney planned, and then is heading back to where it all began.
“I have a slot for the English Channel,” she shares.
“I am going back to swim it 40 years after I swam it the first time.”
For now, though, Gráinne is relishing everything Tsugaru taught her.
She enthuses, “I came back. I started not quite at 100 percent. I trusted what I had, not what I wished I had. It’s the quiet satisfaction of getting it done – something that started a very long time ago.”
