Spencer M. Korwin, a former Team USA triathlete and wellness entrepreneur, drowned during a morning swim on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, while vacationing with his family on Shelter Island, N.Y. He was 38. Relatives and friends filled a Manhattan funeral service for him on Sunday, September 6.
The father of two young daughters went into the water about 8 a.m. that Wednesday from the private dock of the Pridwin Hotel, where his family was lodging, according to Shelter Island Police Det. Sgt. Jack Thilberg. Divers found him underwater beside that same dock about seven hours later.
How the Search Unfolded
His wife alerted hotel staff when he failed to return from the swim, and the staff called for emergency help. Dispatchers logged the missing-swimmer report at about 12:03 p.m., and Shelter Island Town Police officers, Shelter Island Fire Department firefighters and Shelter Island Town Emergency Medical Services crews responded shortly after noon. Nothing in the public record explains the four hours between the swim and the call.
Crews worked the Crescent Beach-North Channel area of Shelter Island Sound and the waterways around it. A Coast Guard boat and helicopter searched, a Southold Town police drone unit joined them, and marine units from the East Marion, Greenport, Southold and Orient fire departments worked the water alongside Southold Town police divers. No police helicopter took part.
Divers located Korwin about 3 p.m. Investigators, working with the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office, believe the death was accidental and that no criminality is suspected, police said. The case remains open, and the medical examiner has yet to set an official cause and manner of death. No ruling had been issued as of Friday, September 18, and no outlet has reported one.
Police have not said what caused Korwin to go under, and no witnesses have been reported. He was swimming alone from a private dock rather than a lifeguarded beach. By the next morning a “Swimming Not Advised” sign had gone up near Crescent Beach.
Conditions on the Water That Day
John Kirincic, the Marine One master for the Southold Town Police Department, told the Shelter Island Reporter there had been nothing unusual about the conditions. “There wasn’t anything unusual,” he said. “There was no fog or anything bad.” Even so, the current in that stretch runs strong, because the tide is forced through a narrow passage. Police Chief Jim Read told The Suffolk Times the area is not normally considered dangerous, but added: “These are open waters where tides, currents and boat traffic are always considerations.”
Korwin’s death was the second drowning in Shelter Island waters this year. Timothy Magambo, 18, of Pelham, N.Y., who had just finished his freshman year at the University at Albany, was swimming the channel from Wades Beach toward Shell Beach with a group on Saturday, May 16, when he became separated; companions found him face down and brought him ashore. He died that day at Stony Brook University Hospital. His injuries were described as consistent with drowning, and no cause was ever formally ruled.
A Fixture on the East End Circuit
Korwin graduated from Syracuse University in 2010. He competed for Team USA at the 2012 age-group triathlon world championships in Auckland, New Zealand, and became a Gatorade-sponsored athlete that year. He was a familiar face closer to home in Long Island’s endurance-sports scene, collecting podium finishes at races across the East End; his LinkedIn profile listed victories at the Montauk Point Lighthouse Triathlon and the Mighty Montauk Sprint Triathlon.
In 2021 he founded Korwin Health & Wellness, advising competitive athletes and ordinary clients on rest, nutrition and balancing the demands of daily life, all while logging his own training hours for Ironman and Ironman 70.3 events. He described his work as helping people “achieve goals that once seemed out of reach.”
His grandfather was Irving Korwin, a World War II veteran who founded the New York jewelry firm Wideband Coin Jewelry in 1951 and died in 2020 at 99 in Paradise Valley, Ariz.
Funeral Service
His funeral was held at Temple Israel, 112 E. 75th St. in Manhattan, at 1:30 p.m. on September 6, with burial afterward at Beth Moses Cemetery in West Babylon.
Korwin is survived by his wife, Carly Korwin, and their two daughters, Sadie, four, and Colette, one. He was a regular presence in the Hamptons, and the couple married on a Bridgehampton beach. Two days after his death, Josh Grosbard, David Himmel and Jeffrey Witten launched a GoFundMe campaign for the girls’ education. It had raised $433,523 from 996 donations against a $500,000 goal by Friday afternoon, with the pace slowing to a trickle over the past week. “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.
Shelter Island is a small island town between the North and South forks of eastern Long Island, and it draws heavy summer traffic from vacationing families, with town police and volunteer emergency crews patrolling its waters. Departments from across the East End answered the missing-swimmer call before divers ended the search that afternoon. No memorial fund has been announced beyond the education campaign, the Pridwin has not commented publicly, and no new reporting on the death has appeared since September 8.