The analogy would be USAT claiming some triathlon record wasn’t legit because the race wasn’t USAT sanctioned and didn’t follow some USAT rule that may or may not be arcane and irrelevant.//
There are no triathlon world records, or any other that course records as far as i know. And USAT does disallow all races not sanctioned with them in their eyes. They do not count in the rankings that they publish every year…
And people do not draft off of their escort boats, or use them to block chop. If they do then the observer is supposed to say something. Can’t recall the exact distance, but swimmers have to be off to the side of their boats. What we have found that swimming too close to the side ends up being a huge disadvantage. The cross chop that comes off the boat makes a washing machine for the swimmer, so we always keep our guy well off to the side and a bit in front of the boat…
Listen, it is just one set of rules like you say, but if you want to be recognized as a record holder or even world record holder, then you have to abide by them. Does not mean you cannot go and do a crossing using your own guidelines, in fact someone already swam across that cuba channel before Diana did. It is just that once you do one of these big swims, you need to state how you did it so that future swimmers know what they are up against. I’m part of a team that has and is attempting again the first solo sea of cortez crossing. We plan to go by the rules stated if at all possible, that would give us the actual world record for a solo swim. But if we have to punt at some point and bend or break a rule, we will state what that was and it will be recorded as such. You are getting too wrapped up in the word unassisted, there really is no such thing technically. It would be like the proverbial tree in the forest, if no one is there to see it, did it really fall?? All sport have rules that govern them, this one is no different. Keeps folks from making outlandish claims and making it a mockery.
I do hope however that she swam all the way across. Don’t care much about little infractions like being touched or touching a boat, never was her intention in the first place to abide by those rules. If it was then she would have had to hire the neutral observer in the first place, which they did not, so it was never even a 1% part of the plan to begin with… If she did swim it all it will go down as such and with the caveats that she did a few things outside of the ECR’s. WOn’t diminish her swim at all, in fact she will have done exactly what she set out to do.
The analogy would be USAT claiming some triathlon record wasn’t legit because the race wasn’t USAT sanctioned and didn’t follow some USAT rule that may or may not be arcane and irrelevant.
OK, I could see the USAT doing that and saying that it maintains the record book for the USAT sanctioned races only. What’s wrong with that? It doesn’t discredit someone’s fast time at the BFE Triathlon World Championships.
Agreed. It would just look a little silly to trumpet that fact about a race that happened, in, say, England.
No boat, no goggles, no suit, no navigation, carry your own food. Cross a body of water like that. That’d be rad.
Yes!!! It doesn’t even need to be 110 miles to be ultra bad ass. Has it even been done for 20?
Surely. At least to escape a marauding gang of Vikings or the like. All this first-world “sport” stuff is just us re-enacting survival methods entrained in our genes, the same stuff that has helped us survive since the dawn of time. Whoever fell off a boat in the ocean and drifted to shore the longest distance is the best swimmer ever. Lots of the world still has people running and swimming for their lives every day. Either to catch food or escape getting killed. Us doing it is just the play version of the real thing - like kittens batting around a ping-pong ball.
Sperm carry their own fuel, too. Original swimmers.
Excellent points you make! I like your perspective on the world.
The EC folks now want her to call her swim “assisted,” which is fine and accurate.
Why wouldn’t she just tell them to piss off?
Because they’re also questioning whether or not she took a ride on the boat for 7.5 hours, and they have a little data that suggests such a possibility. That’s entertaining drama and all, but I’m more interested in the hypocrisy of calling their own rules “pure”.
I kind of agree with you, though I wouldn’t go as far as to call it hypocrisy. The reason original EC crosser didn’t use a wetsuit wasn’t because they were trying to be pure. It was because DAN hadn’t invented them. Still, I respect that they attempt to have rules.
And people do not draft off of their escort boats, or use them to block chop. If they do then the observer is supposed to say something. Can’t recall the exact distance, but swimmers have to be off to the side of their boats. What we have found that swimming too close to the side ends up being a huge disadvantage. The cross chop that comes off the boat makes a washing machine for the swimmer, so we always keep our guy well off to the side and a bit in front of the boat…
I’m sure you have a lot more real-world experience in this than I do. But over at places like marathonswimming.org you’ll find discussions from experienced channel swimmers about best using the boat to block chop and wind.
It’s also my understanding that in the English Channel itself, swimmers are required to stay within 5 meters of the boat at all times, simply because it’s such a busy shipping lane. Like you said though, each area has its own rules.
Keeping the swimmer to front and off to side of the boat seems a lot less assisted to me.
We’d love to hear more about your Sea of Cortez swim!
No boat, no goggles, no suit, no navigation, carry your own food. Cross a body of water like that. That’d be rad.
Yes!!! It doesn’t even need to be 110 miles to be ultra bad ass. Has it even been done for 20?
Surely. At least to escape a marauding gang of Vikings or the like. All this first-world “sport” stuff is just us re-enacting survival methods entrained in our genes, the same stuff that has helped us survive since the dawn of time. Whoever fell off a boat in the ocean and drifted to shore the longest distance is the best swimmer ever. Lots of the world still has people running and swimming for their lives every day. Either to catch food or escape getting killed. Us doing it is just the play version of the real thing - like kittens batting around a ping-pong ball.
Sperm carry their own fuel, too. Original swimmers.
Excellent points you make! I like your perspective on the world.
Thanks! Yeah, this “record” stuff is a little silly when you stop and think and realize that somebody once probably floated 1000 miles to another shore while nibbling on coconuts after being swept to sea by a storm. We don’t celebrate that because nobody knows and he was probably shot in the head with an arrow 5 minutes after landing.
my ex-wife swam the english channel so i can only speak of her experience and her attitude. i was there the whole time and its on youtube if youre so inclined to watch the video…
in terms of attitude: i trained with her to an extent and theres a large contingent of english channel swimmers from connecticut (where i live). the is absolutely no attitude i ever saw from any of them in terms of thinking they were better than anyone else, particularly triathletes. my ex did two ironmans (and was the first amateur out of the water in one…)…many of the other channel swimmers have done triathlons up to and including ironman distance. once again, massive respect for the event, and other athletes in general…no attitude whatsoever. i never heard any mocking whatsoever coming out of any of the channel swimmers mouths regarding wetsuits. in races she wore one and was actually sponsored by Aquaman wetsuits…
in terms of unassisted i would venture that what theyre referring to is the fact that you cant touch the boat, another person or get out of the water for any reason (for the first time ever the boat captain saw a shark…a 14ft basking shark in the water…had no idea what it was at the time but im like ‘get her out’…they said if she gets out she cant go back in…of course basking sharks are plankton eaters but man this puppy was HUGE…luckily she never saw it)…
what i did for her in terms of nutrition was to ‘throw’ her water bottles with a rope, but i couldnt even hand them to her.
in terms of boat position…at no point did she get behind or in front of the boat…the captain did move the boat at one point from one side of her body to another, i can only guess to block waves but to be honest it didnt do squat. thats a mighty big body of water and a tiny boat isnt going to block anything.
you can call her or any of them a hippocrite however after standing on that deck for as long as i did (12:08) i can tell you without a doubt, from my own personal observation, that was the most badass thing ive ever witnessed in terms of an endurance event. it was signficantly harder than an ironman for sure. i would rather do three ironmans back to back that swim the channel. it was that hard.
I think it’s good ot have rules, but I agree they should be reviewed for ensure they aren;t being abused and maintain the spirit of the event.
Honestly, this summer I went for an open water swim while on vacation. My brother in law and my wife’s cousin followed me in kayaks so boaters didn’t run me over and carried a bottle of water for me. They were 10’ away most of the time and handing me a bottle of water which I hardly consider assisting. I did however have a wetsuit on. I think you must have some sort of a escort boat and spotter to swim open water safely unless you’re swimming with another person. I actually have thought about actually doing a longer OWS in the Mississippi River next year before the water gets too warm to use a wetsuit if there isn’t major spring flooding. Can’t be any worse than most of the ponds I’ve raced in.
My point: Some day soon, some bad ass will swim a major channel truly solo. S/he will figure how to carry all the food/water needed, and will swim it without a boat escort (yes, taking the chance of being run over and killed by a ship). Truly solo, truly unassisted. No getting out of the water for lightning, sharks, cramping, puking and exhaustion. Swim across or die trying. It will make the swimmers who go by English Channel rules look like a bunch of tourists.
quote]
This could not happen because it violates the rule requiring a certified pilot and observer to verify that it happened, without which you would have an “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around does it make a sound” scenario. The Nyad channel rule skeptics make the periodic Slowtwitch witchhunts look amateurish, so it would never fly even if it was somehow done.
However, speaking of a bad ass, Matthew Webb was the first to swim the English Channel in 1875. It was not solo and who knows how he used his escort boats in terms of drafting and shielding, but the swim took him almost 22 hours and he ended up doing 39 miles due to the currents. He swam breaststroke the entire way and subsided on beer and boiled meat.
Like I said in my first post: I have huge respect for anyone who can swim 20+ miles open water, and agree it’s way harder than completing an ironman. But my big questions is: Why call it “solo and unassisted”?
Shouldn’t the person who swims it with no boat, no goggles, no suit, no navigation, and carries her own food get that title, and be considered more bad ass than those who use a boat, navigation, and feeders?
This could not happen because it violates the rule requiring a certified pilot and observer to verify that it happened, without which you would have an “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around does it make a sound” scenario. The Nyad channel rule skeptics make the periodic Slowtwitch witchhunts look amateurish, so it would never fly even if it was somehow done.
Fine. The only thing she’d wear is a GPS and go-pro camera, both with real-time satellite uplink. If someone insists on observing from a boat they can do it from a 1/2 mile away, as long as they agree to not rescue her.
20 miles is not way harder than an Ironman. 2 mph = 10 hours. If it’s choppy, then it gets ugly. The biggest issue with OWS is that you don’t know what you’re gonna get out there and it can change at any minute. You better train to swim twice the time you think it should take, just in case.
have you ever swam 20 miles in the open ocean? 62 degrees?
additionally the english channel is really no less than 26 miles in most cases, depending on whether you make it halfway before the current changes…the boat captain on the day my ex swam it said she swam a smidge over 28…
20 miles is not way harder than an Ironman. 2 mph = 10 hours. If it’s choppy, then it gets ugly. The biggest issue with OWS is that you don’t know what you’re gonna get out there and it can change at any minute. You better train to swim twice the time you think it should take, just in case.
Apples and Oranges but I’ll ask you this,how many Ironman finishers do you think could swim the English Channel?
have you ever swam 20 miles in the open ocean? 62 degrees?
additionally the english channel is really no less than 26 miles in most cases, depending on whether you make it halfway before the current changes…the boat captain on the day my ex swam it said she swam a smidge over 28…
I believe he swam across Lake Tahoe, the long way.
have you ever swam 20 miles in the open ocean? 62 degrees?
additionally the english channel is really no less than 26 miles in most cases, depending on whether you make it halfway before the current changes…the boat captain on the day my ex swam it said she swam a smidge over 28…
No - Swam 22 miles at 6200 feet elevation, south to north the entire length of Lake Tahoe. 13 hours. And the bonus is you can walk fine the next day, unlike an ironman. Definitely not way harder. Actually quite comparable. I highly recommend it.
20 miles is not way harder than an Ironman. 2 mph = 10 hours. If it’s choppy, then it gets ugly. The biggest issue with OWS is that you don’t know what you’re gonna get out there and it can change at any minute. You better train to swim twice the time you think it should take, just in case.
Apples and Oranges but I’ll ask you this,how many Ironman finishers do you think could swim the English Channel?
Probably the same percentage as Channel swimmers who could finish an IM in the same year as their crossing.
But, yes, I agree that it’s apple and oranges. For me the channel is way harder because I hope to never in my life be in 62 degree water without a wetsuit for longer than maybe 5 minutes.
20 miles is not way harder than an Ironman. 2 mph = 10 hours. If it’s choppy, then it gets ugly. The biggest issue with OWS is that you don’t know what you’re gonna get out there and it can change at any minute. You better train to swim twice the time you think it should take, just in case.
Apples and Oranges but I’ll ask you this,how many Ironman finishers do you think could swim the English Channel?
Probably the same percentage as Channel swimmers who could finish an IM in the same year as their crossing.
But, yes, I agree that it’s apple and oranges. For me the channel is way harder because I hope to never in my life be in 62 degree water without a wetsuit for longer than maybe 5 minutes.
My opinion: 90% of channel crossers could finish an IM well under the cut off, and something like 10% of IM finishers could swim the channel.
Nyad swam for a really long time and went really far. She put up with some really messed up skin /mouth issues. This is undisputed. She is an amazing distance swimmer. The current helped her. The water was warm. She wore some kind of wetsuit for part of the epic swim.
The EC is 60 degrees. The current doesn’t help you. The rules are rigorously enforced. Less than 1500 people have done it.
Maybe 0.5% of IM finishers could swim the EC within the rules. That event is a wholly different sort of effort.
Read ‘Dover Solo’ if you’re interested in the training and event.
Nyad should have swum the EC at some point. For some reason it is not on her resume. That means something.
I’d love to have the ability to try that but no way I could get used to 60 degree water.
