Totally agree w/Flanagan’s words below. It is a thing of beauty to watch swimmers who know what they are doing. They know where everyone else is in their lane and if someone has joined or exited. Novices seem to have no awareness of where others are or what speed they are swimming.
As a coach of a tri-friendly masters team I have seen it all. Former collegiate swimmers pass with the greatest of ease even if the lane is crowded whereas I have witnessed 2 less experienced swimmers swim head-on into each other when it was just the two of them sharing the lane. That takes good aim .
A few standard problems:
-those who swim straight down the middle (which, incidentally is a good way to secure a lane to yourself as typically other swimmers don’t want to be confrontational and will just go to a different lane).
-those push off 1 second after the person in front of them.
-those who block the wall on turns
-those who are stopped at the wall and then push off right in front of a faster swimmer (usually b/c they want to leave on the 60 or 30 - they should wait for the faster swimmer to pass and just leave on the, oh horrors, 5 or 35)
These are some of the reasons that masters swimmers who come from a swimming background often don’t welcome triathletes with open arms. It has more to do with the fact that they haven’t mastered swim etiquette than that they are triathletes. In my opinion it is the coach’s job to educate these swimmers so that they feel comfortable and don’t, er, make waves amongst the more experienced masters.
-leh
There is nothing quite as cool as a lane of swimmers who know how to swim/pass/turn (basically any team) as long as everyone is aware of everyone else’s presence in the lane. You should know if someone is catching you. You should know if you are about to catch someone. As long as you gauge the timing right two people can easily do a flip turn at the exact same time on the wall and push off together while the one person completes the pass. Nobody slows down, not even the person coming the other direction. Most lanes can easily accomodate people swimming 3 wide (two on one side and another person coming the other way).
A lane of good/alert swimmers has a synergy which is not too different from a Cat 1/2 peleton.