Open Water Swimmer Are Not Limited to Eight Lanes In the Pool, But ….
One might think that a big wide-open lake or ocean could accommodate thousands of swimmers and, therefore, entry into a race or arranging a solo swim would be easy. The explosion of interest in open water swimming has resulted in the same kind of entry issues you read about in the New York (running) Marathon and Ironman (triathlon) in Hawaii. Excessive demand imposes real constraints on swimmer numbers.
Let’s take the example of a solo swim across the English Channel – historically considered to be the pinnacle of marathon swimming. As the crow flies, it is 33 km between the typical starting point near Dover, England and the swimmer’s freedom to land along a lengthy stretch of the coastline in France. A swimmer now needs to book a boat/pilot two or three years in advance to secure a desirable tide and swim preference (which of the swimmers on the same tide goes first, second, etc.).
Neap tides are generally desired as the amount of water moving between low and high water is minimized. The tide moves perpendicular to the swimmer’s path to produce many swim paths looking like this:
Photo Courtesy:
So, why don’t they just allow 50 swimmers in the channel on a desirable neap tide in August? There are several compelling reasons:
1. The marine authorities restrict the number of boats/swimmers for safety and sanity. The swimmers are crossing two of the busiest commercial shipping channels in the world – not to mention crossing channel ferries and lots of pleasure craft. Imagine individuals strolling across two sets of highway lanes with speeding cars. You get the picture.
2. The number of pilots with experience, boats (right size, insurance, and equipment) and observers is limited.
3. Variable weather and sea conditions prevent planning such a mass event in advance.
Ok, but these same limitations surely wouldn’t apply to a shorter, mass race in a less commercial bit of water? That’s generally correct, but there are other limiting factors:
Physical space: How do the swimmers, families, volunteers, and spectators get to the event, park, register, change, assemble, start, make any turns around buoys, finish, dress and get results/awards? And if it is point-to-point, how do you get the swimmers and gear between these?
Land based official permissions: Space restriction might involve remote parking, parade permits, extra police, special sanitation coverage, porta-toilets, traffic diversions and closing a popular beach for a few hours.
Water based official permissions: It is more and more common to require official permission from the Coast Guard, Port Authorities and Lifeguard Authorities to stage a mass swim event.
Where the land meets the water official permissions: Don’t laugh, but insurance is required to cover replacing a bridge if a swimmer were to run into a piling and cause a collapse. Seriously. This is not a joke.
Safety capacity: How do you have a mass start of 500 swimmers down a river which is 50 meters wide? How do you have a mass start of 500 swimmers from a beach who need to turn to the left at a marker buoy 200 meters from the start?
Safety craft marshalling: The famous Rottnest swim involves about 1,000 boats with propellers and 500+ kayakers. The Robben Island Freedom swim needs 50+ boats to all launch off one small slipway and travel 11 km to the start. Then imaging the baby penguins all waiting to unite with their mothers on the beach in Antarctica. So it is uniting swimmers with their safety boat.
Safety plan cover: For a point-to-point race of 5 km, how many safety boats with propellers, paddle boarders, jet skis, kayakers do you need? How many ambulances/AEDs/first aid kits? Under what weather/sea conditions can you run the event? And for those safety boats with propellers, do they need propeller guards, training so they never go in reverse, 2-3 crew in each, dry bags with warm gear, first aid kits, first aid trained crew, AEDs? Did you remember to erect a lost child tent, with drinks and toys and licensed child protection staff, and include this in the briefing?
Other volunteers/staff: What do you need to promote and advance register? Did you buy the special swim caps, rent timing chip systems, finishing gates, tables, chairs, first aid tents, announcement systems, make goodie bags, set up check-in and check-out areas, deal with any swimmers returning in safety craft or in distress after finishing?
Insurance: In addition to the bridges (!), insurance needs to cover all the volunteers, accidents with safety craft, drunken spectators falling off a bridge while watching. Then there are the swimmers themselves.
The inexperienced consideration: Popularity comes with a seldom discussed cost. If you run a 5 km event for 50 swimmers who swim faster than 3 km/hour and accomplished a 10 km marathon in the past 12 months AND CAN SIGHT AND SWIM STRAIGHT, you might get one or two swimmers who do not finish (DNF) in the allotted time of two hours and need to get in a safety boat – generally under their own power. So, the boats with propellers can stay well wide of the swimmers. If you run the same 5 km event for 500 swimmers, with an open invitation, you will get 25+ who have never swum that distance before – or certainly in the last five years.
For sure, many CANNOT SIGHT AND CANNOT SWIM STRAIGHT. You get a lot more DNFs (including those who might take five hours with a two-hour cutoff) who need to get in a safety boat – often not under their own power. Now the crews need to contain lifeguards and the boats with propellers will be in among the swimmers stretched out over a longer distance drifting widely across the desired swim path.
Now that you better understand, there are many things to celebrate. There are now thousands of swims to select from, with generally easy online registration systems. For the very popular, hard to get into swims, often with a “mysterious” selection process, there is a trick. Volunteer to help for two years, be useful and positive and when you then try and enter in year three, your chances will be excellent.
Finally, a sobering thought from International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame Honor Administrator Colin Hill, who was the Swim Director for Great Swim from (10,000 swimmers) from 2008 to 2011: “With very large numbers of people in one place, a pre-existing medical condition combined with the stress of physical exercise means that very serious medical incidents are statistically more likely than your smaller club type swim events. We had to make sure that we knew where every swimmer was located as timing chips can sometimes not work or fall off or swimmers are taken off the water during the swim for a medical issue, so you can’t just rely on the start and finish mats when you have thousands of swimmers throughout the day. Each swimmer would check into the start area by going to a counter with a staff member and laptop -chip read to make sure it was working and the correct timing chip, they would then go into the start pen for the safety briefing after their swim we would then do the same after the finish mat. If anyone was missing, then we’d have a check list of things to do to locate the swimmer. Mass swim events need procedures in place to PROVE that risks were reduced as much as possible. If a fatality happens, then we need assigned staff to help the families and deal with legitimate media information requests.”
Suggest okoboji point to point swim. 3.2 miles. Great lake.