SHELTER ISLAND, N.Y. — An online fund for the two young daughters of Spencer Korwin, the 38-year-old former Team USA triathlete who drowned off a Shelter Island hotel dock Wednesday, had raised more than $262,000 from 600 donors as of Sunday morning, hours before his funeral in Manhattan.
Korwin, of Manhattan, went for a morning swim off the private dock of the Pridwin Hotel during a family stay and was found underwater near the dock about seven hours later, Shelter Island Town Police said. Police believe the death was accidental.
A Syracuse University graduate who raced for Team USA at the 2012 triathlon world championships, Korwin spent more than a decade as a trainer in Manhattan and ran his own practice, Korwin Health & Wellness. Friends launched the fund two days after he died for the education of his daughters, Sadie, 4, and Colette, 1.
The GoFundMe campaign, organized by Josh Grosbard and Jeffrey Witten, has a $300,000 goal. The largest gift listed Sunday was an anonymous $38,000 donation.
“He was the sun around which so many of our lives orbited, and his loss is being felt deeply by everyone who knew and loved him,” the organizers wrote on the page. They said the fund is “one way to keep Spencer’s community close to them as they grow.”
A funeral service was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Sunday at Temple Israel, 112 E. 75th St. in Manhattan, followed by burial at Beth Moses Cemetery in West Babylon, according to Star of David Memorial Chapels. The family will sit shiva at a private home in Mamaroneck through Wednesday.
Korwin is survived by his wife, Carly Korwin, and their daughters, according to Greater Long Island.
Korwin entered the water near Crescent Beach around 8 a.m., police said. When he had not returned by midday, his wife alerted hotel staff, who called emergency services at about 12:03 p.m. Divers recovered his body about 3 p.m. after a search by Shelter Island and Southold police, local fire departments, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
Detective Sgt. Jack Thilberg of the Shelter Island Police Department said no criminality is suspected. The Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the final cause of death.
Police have not said what caused Korwin, an experienced open-water swimmer, to go under, and no witnesses have been reported. He was swimming alone from a private dock, not a lifeguarded beach.
Conditions were calm that morning, John Kirincic, master of the Southold Town Police Department’s Marine One vessel, told The Suffolk Times. But he said the narrow passage there produces strong currents, and the newspaper reported low tide fell near the time Korwin went in.
The death is the second apparent drowning off Shelter Island this summer. Timothy Magambo, 18, of Pelham, died in May off Wades Beach, according to the Shelter Island Reporter.
Shelter Island Police Chief James Read responded with a Labor Day weekend warning that the island’s open waters carry tides, currents, and boat traffic. “Enjoy the water, but respect it,” Read said, urging swimmers to use lifeguarded beaches and never swim alone.
No public statement from Korwin’s family beyond the fundraiser page had been reported as of Sunday.
