Doing it Tough?

HaydnHaydn Member
edited February 2013 in General Discussion
Why is it that most threads seem to discuss the rights or wrongs of making a swim easier or faster? Drafting, hot water flushes, changing into suits etc.

What can we do to make a swim purer (no escort ), tougher (winter swims), technical (channel swims starting from Folkestone, Dungeness) etc ?

New swimming arenas; Antarctic marathons, ocean crossings, circumnavigations ?

Comments

  • Leonard_JansenLeonard_Jansen Charter Member
    How about we require that the swimmer tow the support boat? Also, if the swimmer doesn't make certain goals within the swim (such as reach point X by such-and-such a time), we taser them - not enough to paralyze them, but just enough to make all movements spastic.
    No need to thank me - just trying to help.

    -LBJ
    kimh

    “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde

  • loneswimmerloneswimmer IrelandCharter Member
    Also, kicks to the head during feeds. That's if feeds are to be allowed at all. And the introduction of a minimum one random Torture Swim Challenge every hour, the worst of which at Cork Distance Week is generally agreed to be a close-up of @Ned's bare arse instead of a feed.

    loneswimmer.com

  • Towing the boat is something I am working on as it rids the need of an escort or coming ashore. But it splits every swim into a staged journey or even disqualifies for resting .

    I like an idea to cross the channel on the given date regardless of weather , and Non stop coastal relays. Swimming in bad tides and rough weather. Like spending a few hours stuck in a tide race, you get nowhere but the swimming is unreal.
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited February 2013
    Forrest Nelson did a Catalina crossing on December 28, 2009, which was pretty badass.

    As a variation on @Haydn's "no escort" idea, there's a self-navigated swim. Meaning, the swimmer has an escort boat for safety, but the boat stays behind the swimmer, and the swimmer is responsible for navigating.

    (Note: I'm not taking credit for this idea. For more, read here.)
  • That's a great idea, but it is still too easy to abandon a swim just by getting on board. But can you imagine swimming the EC that way. Having to choose your own tide management and drift, even how close you get to the passing tanker. I love it. And just imagine , whichever side you breathe , you don't get to see the boat. Bet you couldn't get a pilot to agree to do it though. And swimming straight ahead, now there's a new challenge. You would have to wear your own compass. Gosh, the more I think of it, the more I like the idea.
  • Interesting. I was just about to post a mini-report of swimming to C-buoy off La Jolla, which is out at sea and generally not visible from the water level at B-buoy. A 4 mile route is Cove to A to B to C to the Pier, then straight back to the Cove. Or just Vallecitos to C and back.
  • david_barradavid_barra NYCharter Member
    The thought of certain people disappearing under a tanker in the English Channel is not completely without appeal.....
    (did I just post that?)
    kimh

    ...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    I appreciated Amazon's suggestion that customers who viewed How to Avoid Huge Ships also tended to view Looking For... The Best of David Hasselhoff.

    Now there are some quality tunes!
  • oxooxo Guest
    edited February 2013
    Hey! That CD got me through all k-th legs of my n-tuple channel crossing, for k in the set of prime factors of Graham's Number ... heaven forbid I'd have to have swum that, like, on my own.
  • SharkoSharko Tomales BayGuest
    Years ago I proposed a tanker ship diver training class to South Enders and didn't get enough of a response to put it on...this was before I faced my demons on some longer swims.....but by watching the aveage speed of the tankers (they are moving pretty fast actually) I think the calcualtion was they would pass within 45 seconds which would mean a dive in front say 20 seconds down and under the keel far enough not to get sucked into the prop and stay there for 45 seconds and then back up for a total of say a minute thirty....wouldn't you want to have an a Certified Tanker Ship Diver sticker on you sweatshirt....great for conversations!!!

    "I never met a shark I didn't like"

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    Haydn wrote:
    ...technical (channel swims starting from Folkestone, Dungeness) etc ? ...

    @Haydn was hinting at his hard-way EC crossing back then!

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

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