African Record Highline: 1200-meter-long in Waterval Boven, South Africa

The South African, and African record for the longest highline was achieved in October 2025 by a group of South African, American, and Canadian highliners. Cary Small and Leighton Calder walked across the 1200m highline without falling, setting a new South African record.  

In the addition to the presence of our highline leash and leash ring, we were proud to have our ambassador Laurence taking part in the project and managing to walk across the massive highline with only two falls in the last 200 meters. His crossing took him two hours, setting off at 5am and reaching the far side just after sunrise.

As seen in David Blaszka's film, Cary invited his friends Alexandra, Danny, David, Natalie and his partner from Canada, Audrey to visit South Africa. Bringing with them expertise alongside high-tech gear they contributed greatly to the project.

It is hard to comprehend the effort required to achieve the rigging of a kilometer long highline. The above film helps to share a glimpse of the numerous hands involved in pulling across thousands of meters of rope and webbing. The project required 2800 meters of webbing to be on hand (half for the main line and half for the backup). In addition, 1400 meters of UHMWPE fishing line, 1400 meters of polyester tag line, and 1300 meters of UHMWPE rope.

This was the first highline in South Africa to have a load cell in position giving live readings of the forces on the anchor. While we use a load cell to test our gear in house, it is an industrial size scale, much too large to include in an anchor. Danny's Linescale installed behind the weblock provided readings throughout the project, giving peace of mind when windy conditions peaked the forces around 5kn.

We look forward to seeing highlining continue to grow in South Africa, and collaborations between international communities taking us to new heights.