davidalone wrote:
Have helped set up a couple of swim courses for university opwn swim and aquathlon events; heres some reasons why swim courses are tough:
1) where does the swim course 'start' exactly? Most competitions are beach starts. Does your swim course start at the start gate? Or the water itself? Thats easily 10-15 meters right there (dont forget the water moves with the tides). What if you set up your course at low tide and the tide starts to come in?
2) most bouys are set up by canoe or speedboat, typically via gps. First you have to account for gps error (easily 10 meters) , then you have to account for the fact that stopping a small boat in a precise location is not an exact science. Dont forget that most people arent exactly using military or fishing grade gps sensors and are volunteers.
3) the bouys are typically dropped via small anchor (they arent tied or secured to the sea bed, no one has that much money to get a diver to do that. ). Strong currents and tides can absolutely move bouys. We had to stop a race in between waves once as the bouys had drifted off a pretty big distance. Even in the event of relatively calm waters, a bouy can still 'float' in a circular radius of error (think of a force triangle- the point is a fixed anchor, the buoy is conmected to the anchor via a rope. However, the buoy can still be pushed off course by as much as the length of the connecting rope)
4) I have done races where the all the buoys are connected to the beach and anchored via ropes. This is a slightly better method and mitigates some error caused by 'floating' but ropes also expand when wet. This may not sound like much, but if you have a Loooong rope (say 100m), a small error can be pretty big.
5) unless you have a big race like ironman, beach use licenses typically mean most buoys are set up on race morning in the wee hours, in the dark. This is no fun and absolutely adds to the stress.
Thanks for your insight....makes sense.
"Good genes are not a requirement, just the obsession to beat ones brains out daily"...the Griz