Our local Y is planning on renovating the indoor pool in May. Right now the pool is 12 feet deep. Rumor has it that the plans are to make it only 5 feet at the deepest! My question is, "what is the minimum depth the pool should be to make starts from the block safe?"
Parents
Former Member
Pool depths,
For teaching diving from the deck the American Red Cross Water Safety Instructors need at least 8ft (It could be more, I am spacing a little bit on this). So letting kids dive in water that is less than 5 ft is cause for a big problem (this from the deck, not talking about the added height of a starting block). Of course we are master swimmers and the starting blocks have warnings and we are properly trained (yada yada yada), for safety 4 ft should be the bare minimum for starting blocks, people always have the choice where to start.
As for the recreation people using the blocks, unless of course your blocks are in 10ft plus of water (see red cross guidelines, also need 11ft 6in to teach springboard diving froma 1 meter board).
Cynthia I agree with Wayne, there are worse things than having to wait to climb out of a pool after an event, if you think that takes long - think about the delay in the swim meet when the aquatics staff has to backboard and extracate a swimmer with a neck/back injury. For pool depth safety, someone can drown in less than a foot of water, so why worry about what depth a pool is. Most facilities are two pools, one with deep water and one with shallow water, or in some cases pools with moveable bottoms so they can adjust the depth of part of the pool.
Lastly thinking back on my age group swimming, we swam in a 50 meter pool, shallow end was 2ft 9in, this is where the starting blocks were located (I do mean starting blocks the square 2 step fiberglass boxes that we dove off of, can't remember anyone having a serious injury - of course now looking back, what were they thinking !
Jeff
Pool depths,
For teaching diving from the deck the American Red Cross Water Safety Instructors need at least 8ft (It could be more, I am spacing a little bit on this). So letting kids dive in water that is less than 5 ft is cause for a big problem (this from the deck, not talking about the added height of a starting block). Of course we are master swimmers and the starting blocks have warnings and we are properly trained (yada yada yada), for safety 4 ft should be the bare minimum for starting blocks, people always have the choice where to start.
As for the recreation people using the blocks, unless of course your blocks are in 10ft plus of water (see red cross guidelines, also need 11ft 6in to teach springboard diving froma 1 meter board).
Cynthia I agree with Wayne, there are worse things than having to wait to climb out of a pool after an event, if you think that takes long - think about the delay in the swim meet when the aquatics staff has to backboard and extracate a swimmer with a neck/back injury. For pool depth safety, someone can drown in less than a foot of water, so why worry about what depth a pool is. Most facilities are two pools, one with deep water and one with shallow water, or in some cases pools with moveable bottoms so they can adjust the depth of part of the pool.
Lastly thinking back on my age group swimming, we swam in a 50 meter pool, shallow end was 2ft 9in, this is where the starting blocks were located (I do mean starting blocks the square 2 step fiberglass boxes that we dove off of, can't remember anyone having a serious injury - of course now looking back, what were they thinking !
Jeff
