When drafting in swimming is there any effect on the swimmer being drafted? I.e., does the lead swimmer get helped by having someone drafting, get slowed down by towing someone, or is there no effect?
Totally unscientific answer- no effect, other than getting tapped on the toes can be a motivator to speed up some.
I’ll go with “little or no effect” because that lead swimmer is still moving the same amount of water around their body and the turbulence around that swimmer which might normally slow the swimmer (a minute amount) might be moved by the drafter…
Anyone?
Theoretically, the lead swimmer would be helped a minute amount (just like with race cars) because the trailing swimmer is pushing some water out ahead of him, of which some percentage will exert a forward force on the lead swimmer.
(With cars it is obviously very different since you have to consider that the rear wheels tend to get less downforce, meaning the car can get loose, etc. But the basic principle still applies.)
In practice, though, I doubt the effect would even be measureable.
So if you are wondering 'cause you’re gonna pull a friend, you can, with the knowledge that you might even be 0.0001 seconds faster. Tim DeBoom has pulled Nicole at races with mass starts. Isn’t that sweet?
you should give up on your dreams of winning races and pull my slow ass on the swim!
So if you are wondering 'cause you’re gonna pull a friend, you can, with the knowledge that you might even be 0.0001 seconds faster. Tim DeBoom has pulled Nicole at races with mass starts. Isn’t that sweet?
Where this question came from is I was drafting someone who got upset because I was making them do all the extra work of pulling me across the lake. My arguement was that, if anything, the longer “hull length” of two bodies would make us both faster (by 0.0001 seconds) and that the pull I was gettting was wasted energy of the water getting moved regardless of whether there was anyone in the draft.
Tell him he is an idiot. And that next time, he should swim faster so that you can’t hang on! (that way, you get an even better pull next time…)
You were correct. You would be marginally faster (0.0000001 seconds or so). Only real rule of “etiquette” I’ve heard is if you are going to get pulled the whole way, just don’t be touching the guys feet like every other stroke. I personally, don’t care to much about that etiquette, and touch people’s feet regularly because it usually makes them swim faster. 
You should just put yourself in my wave… That’d be better for you. You can draft off me, and I’ll draft off somebody else…
I touched a foot 2 or 3 times in the 500 metres I held the draft and was following the rules of etiquitte.
I just said okay, passed and swam away. The draft was holding me up anyways.
He said this DURING the swim? He really must have thought you were slowing him down to stop and yell at you…