Six months and 214km lead to World Record

Tauranga kayaker Tim Taylor

Six months after Tim Taylor kayaked 214km in 24 hours, he has officially been awarded the Guinness World Record for the feat.

Mr Taylor first took to the water from Pilot Bay at 8am on April 16. By 5.30pm he had reached Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula and was turning round to paddle home.

At at 4.30am he had easily smashed the previous record of 194.1km and continued paddling until 7am, when cold and exhaustion took over and his body locked up.

Standing on the Salisbury Wharf after his epic paddle, Mr Taylor said at the time that it was "surreal" to have smashed the record.

But it finally sank in after the Guinness World Record email dropped into his inbox in the early hours last week.

"We're thrilled to inform you your application has been successful and you're now the Guinness World Record holder.

"You'll shortly get a Guinness World Record certificate in the post."

Mr Taylor hoped one day his name would feature in the annual book he remembered looking at as a child.

He is looking forward to the framed certificate taking pride of place in his office.

Despite the six-month delay, he was surprised the acknowledgment had come through so soon.

Applying for the record took two months of collating evidence, including written affidavits from all the witnesses, an edited video featuring two minutes of every hour of the record, accurate maps as well as a Google Earth file recording his tracker's path.

That was followed by fortnightly emails from Guinness World Records requesting clarification on evidence or more information.

"You see Guinness World Records in your inbox and you kind of panic," he laughed.

A week ago he was told they had all the information they needed and it would take three months to process the record, so it was much to his surprise that it was all over in a week.

He sent a text around his friends, family and sponsors to let them know but he said the real celebrations were done back in April.

The world record-holder has already turned his sights to the next challenge - recently swapping his sea kayak for a K1 racing kayak and hoping to one day make the New Zealand team.