Canceled USMS Open Water Swims

Is anyone else interested in keeping track of the canceled USMS open water swims in 2013?

It might be a good idea to keep track of those events.

A simple idea, and my suggestion, would be to just post them to this thread for all to see.
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Comments

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited March 2013
    Also I'd suggest listing swims that will continue, but are taking their (insurance) business elsewhere.

    - Kingdom Swim (de-sanctioned by USMS, now sanctioned by WOWSA)
    - Tampa Bay Marathon Swim (de-sanctioned by USMS)
  • I think "Mermaid" said she had to cancel her swim, but I don't know what that is. Somewhere back east.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited March 2013
    I think "Mermaid" said she had to cancel her swim, but I don't know what that is. Somewhere back east.
    That would be the Search for Monongy swim in Pittsburgh (source).
  • timsroottimsroot Spring, TXCharter Member
    A bit ironically, I'm staging a new (non marathon) swim, that I have been "encouraged" by my LMSC chair to sanction through USMS. The sanction went to national yesterday. I'm curious how the process will play out from here. And how long it will take. I didn't hear back from the owsupport@usms.org email address until I followed up with my contact at national asking if they checked that account.
  • timsroottimsroot Spring, TXCharter Member
    Niek wrote:
    Maybe owsupport@usms.org is their variant of noreply@usms.org :)

    I wondered, but when I contacted Sarasota, they responded relatively quickly. It seems they had discussed it among themselves, but forgot to answer the original inquirer.

    I will say this, the new requirements have made things more complicated, even for my little race in a small sheltered puddle. I have a good working relationship with the owner of the facility, a water ski school (www.skibennetts.com). I run some training swims up there most Saturdays, and he lets us swim on his facility's insurance with a signature on a waiver. He has 3 boats in 2 of his 3 ponds all the time, and has people skiing in the ponds adjacent to where we swim most of the weeks we are up there. I trust him and his staff...

    But because of the $1M insurance requirement, although he may actually be able to get the required paperwork completed, I don't even have the option of using his (inboard) on site watercraft, and instead, we have to have the local dive team folks (who thankfully I know the guy who trains them) being in their boat to have something on site in case something happens.
  • timsroottimsroot Spring, TXCharter Member
    Niek wrote:
    Inboard motors and still not able to get approval? Did they explain?

    I could have gotten the inboards approved, but then the facility owner would have needed to provide a certificate saying he was covered for $1M. I'm not going to ask him to do that, so I'm going to plan around the requirements.
  • Procedural considerations and other discussion might be more appropriate in the other threads about insurance, etc. This thread was really just to keep track of canceled swims and/or swims that are no longer sanctioning with USMS.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    Niek wrote:
    Thanks for the links. The main take-away seems to be: it was USMS sanctioned in 2012, but will not be in 2013. Right?

    Future posters: Please spell out the conclusions so we don't have to search for it.
  • AquaRobAquaRob Humboldt Bay, CACharter Member
    Niek wrote:
    Why exclude them? Be a man and list them all. No censorship.

    @Niek the reason LMSCs tend to not list events lacking a USMS sanction is that one of the key selling points of getting a sanction, at least in a big LMSC like SPMS or PacMasters, is the marketing bump you get from that. There's a real value in getting your event promoted to ~5,000 (SPMS) to ~11,000 swimmers (PacMasters). You can't expect an organization to waste marketing resources on non-sanctioned events that don't return any kind of value for the help. It's not censorship, it's just business.

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited March 2013
    AquaRob wrote:
    the reason LMSCs tend to not list events lacking a USMS sanction is that one of the key selling points of getting a sanction [...] is the marketing bump you get from that.
    [...]
    You can't expect an organization to waste marketing resources on non-sanctioned events that don't return any kind of value for the help. It's not censorship, it's just business.
    Marketing was one selling point... insurance was another.

    But one might argue it is good marketing and PR to host a comprehensive, well-designed, useful OW calendar. Refusing to list non-sanctioned events makes it less comprehensive and (arguably) less useful.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited March 2013
    @Niek read the quote. I agree with you.

    Refusing to list non-sanctioned events (that compete with sanctioned events) makes the calendar less comprehensive and less useful.
  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    Probably not complete, but I always use http://usopenwaterswimming.org/2012OWCalendar.htm. When I lived in Europe I used your calendar Niek, which I love.

    But I also agree this thread should just list the actual races that fell victim. Right Bill? ;)

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • timsroottimsroot Spring, TXCharter Member
    Niek wrote:


    I swam last year's race and am in for this spring's. He has a 5k in the fall that he didn't sanction through USMS so that it would be easier for folks to enter. His 10k last fall wasn't a USMS race, either. His decision was made before the procedural changes, so it isn't fair to credit this change to this thread.
  • timsroottimsroot Spring, TXCharter Member
    Niek wrote:
    I see Tortuga listed as a sanctioned event on 15 April 2012 but nowhere on the 2013 calendar.

    I understand that. I didn't realize he had USMS sanctioning in the spring last year. He ran a 5k swim in the fall where he withdrew his sanction request, so that he could have the flexibility to allow triathletes and younger swimmers to enter (there is a very talented 14 or 15 year old girl who swims his races). This was before anyone, even in Sarasota, knew of the trouble that was brewing. He ran a 10k swim in November that was insured through an independant source, I didn't ask him which firm. Given what you've shown me, he's not insuring his race through USMS this spring, either. WIth the way he runs his races, he wouldn't have been able to comply with the new regulations even if he wanted to.

    I understand what you are saying, but having spoken with the race director when I swam in these events, the decision to sanction outside of USMS was not made as a result of the decisions made in Sarasota.

  • timsroottimsroot Spring, TXCharter Member
    Guys, let's not all rush to judgement here. There are plenty of other reasons why a swim might not be listed on the calendar like it was in previous years. I agree that a lot of swims will not happen this year because of the USMS changes. But there are plenty of other reasons. In the case of the RD for the Snapping Tortuga events, his decision was made before the changes in question. It may have changed for this year, but in years past, USA Triathlon would not let anyone else sanction an accompanying open water swim if it was staged along with a triathlon. Any event wanting to add a triathlon to get more participants may run into this difficulty.

    Let's let race directors speak for themselves instead of trying to put words in their mouths.
  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    I can tell you that the Jim McDonnell Lake Swims in Reston, VA, are still going to happen, in the words of my LMSC (Potomac Valley), because registration is already open (thus people have already paid, so the organizers can't up the price).

    I did the 1-mile race 3 years ago and I don't remember any powerboats on the lake, although that may be because I was overwhelmed, that being my first OW race. So, I don't know about the boat insurance requirement or the blade cover (or whatever it's called).

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • timsroottimsroot Spring, TXCharter Member
    IronMike wrote:
    blade cover (or whatever it's called).

    Propeller Guard

  • RonCollinsRonCollins Clearwater, Florida, USAMember
    The Tampa Bay Marathon Swim is on April 20th. We have alternative insurance, and we're good to go: http://www.DistanceMatters.com

    Ron Collins
    Clearwater, Florida
    DistanceMatters.com

  • david_barradavid_barra NYCharter Member
    2 Bridges Swim Under the Walkway; 5k and 2.5k on June 1. 2013
    8 Bridges Hudson River Swim; June 15 - 22, 2013
    Bannermans Return, 5k and 10k options; Sept. 1, 2013

    Are all good to go sans USMS

    ...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

  • FilFil Derby, VTCharter Member
    edited April 2013
    Northeast Kingdom Open Water Swimming Association (NEKOWSA) will be offering 12 days of swimming sans USMS. For the full list: http://www.kingdomswim.org/NEKOWSA.php. Kingdom Swim (with the WOWSA World 10 Mile Championship) will probably have 200 to 300 swimmers. But others, like our 3 mile Lake Caspian Swim will probably have somewhere between 5 and 10 swimmers followed by a picnic lunch prepared by the Caspian Lake Association. Our week of swimming in August will include the Willoughby Swim (which should see 20 to 30 swimmers) but also 6 other days of swimming which will involve smaller numbers.

    My BIG question to USMS is not just about the "big" swims. What about all of the smaller, shorter (dare I say, safer) swims? Do they matter? Where do they fit in to the bigger picture of the future of open water swimming?

  • njoynjoy Member
    I thought I'd add this to the conversation. This was announced by the West Neck Pod, who run this event.

    SAD NEWS: The 2013 Huntington/Cold Spring Harbor (Long Island, NY) 1&2-Mile Swim (the "West Neck Swim") is CANCELLED. Because of recent horrific accidents at major open-water events, this year United States Masters Swimming ("USMS") has imposed prohibitively expensive insurance premiums that have substantially increased the costs of running charitable open-water events like ours. Swim organizers are informed that USMS has also apparently stopped issuing sanctions altogether for other than lake and/or cable swims that are relatively low-risk. These issues have impacted the Swim's ability to timely obtain the insurance certificate required to obtain the necessary permits from the Town of Huntington and have made it impossible to complete our organizational planning by June 23rd, and Swim organizers have reluctantly concluded that this year's Swim must be cancelled. Hopefully by the time we begin planning next year's West Neck Swim, USMS will have developed more workable guidelines and policies for open-water events, and we will be back with an even better "West Neck Swim" in 2014!
  • bobswimsbobswims Santa Barbara CACharter Member
    From the most recent Oregon Masters newsleter:

    "Due to the giant leap in the USMS event liability insurance
    premium and the change in the sanction requirements
    (see the article that I wrote on this topic in the April Aqua
    Master), several Oregon swims will be held outside the
    USMS umbrella on a non-sanctioned basis. This does not
    diminish these events; it just means that they are using
    separate insurance to cover the event, with some resulting
    changes in operation.
    2. All USMS-sanctioned events will carry a required insurance
    surcharge of $6 for each swimmer entered at a venue. This
    will cover part of the event liability insurance increase, and
    OMS will graciously pick up the remaining portion.
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