Victor Vescovo MN'18 - Explorers Club Texas

Victor Vescovo MN’18Deep Ocean Explorer, Polar Explorer, Mountain Climber, World Record Holder in Many Categories, Retired Navy Commander

Explorer Profile

Victor is a Dallas native with an undergrad from Stanford and a master’s degree from MIT and Harvard who made his mark in equity investments prior to turning his attention to exploration.

In December 2018, he became the first person to reach the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean, piloting DSV Limiting Factor, a reported $50 million submarine system (Triton 36000/2) including its support ship the DSSV Pressure Drop and its three ultra-deep-sea robotic landers 27,477 ft below the ocean surface to the base of the Puerto Rico Trench.

In April 2019, Vescovo descended nearly 11 km (6.8 mi) to the deepest place in the ocean – the Challenger Deep in Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench. On his first descent, he piloted the DSV Limiting Factor to a depth of 10,928 m (35,853 ft), a world record by 16 m (52 ft).[7] Diving for a second time on May 1 he became the first person to dive the Challenger Deep twice, finding “at least three new species of marine animals” and “some sort of plastic waste.”

In 2019, Victor Vescovo was recognized by Guinness World Records as the person who has covered the greatest vertical distance without leaving Earth’s surface. As part of achieving the Explorers Grand Slam (Last Degree), Vescovo climbed Mt. Everest (8,848 meters (29,029 ft)) on 24 May 2010, Earth’s highest point. Almost nine years later he dove to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (−10,924 meters (−35,840 ft)), Earth’s lowest point, in the deep submersible Limiting Factor on 29 April 2019, for a total vertical distance of 19,772 meters (64,869 ft).

Vescovo completed the Explorers Grand Slam (Last Degree) by climbing the highest peak on each of the seven continents and skied the Last Degree of Latitude at both the North and South Poles. Uniquely, with the successful completion of his Five Deep Expeditions, Vescovo has also dived the deepest point in each of the five world’s oceans.