leonard jansen - boston light

Originally posted by jdut Just wanted to publicly acknowledge Mr Jansen's participation (and 2nd place finish) at this years' 8 mile Boston Light Swim. Great job! How did you find this swim compared to others you've done? Thanks. It was a great swim and I enjoyed it very much. The real challenge of this race is the water temperature - it was between 60 and 65 degrees (no wetsuits), varying by location. Supposedly, this is slightly "warm" for this race. The start was colder than the finish. Interestingly, at the pre-race dinner, the "locals" seemed more worried about the chop/roughness than the temperature. For the out-of-towners, it was the opposite. The other issue for this race is trying to get a support boat - good luck. I had a boat (it took weeks to find one), but the engine blew up several days before the race and it wasn't going to be fixed in time. This caused a mad scramble to find a replacement. My brother lives in the area and he is a real wheeler-dealer and he managed to get a replacement, although it probably took 10 years off his life. The race course is beautiful. I know that sounds strange, but for the first 6 miles it weaves in and out of islands that are part of a park system in the Boston Harbor. The first 4 miles were pretty smooth sailing and then it got ROUGH - so rough that I watched the bow of the boat go under several times. We then had 2-ish miles of chop and cross current and I got hammered there - just couldn't find a decent line and got pushed all over the bay, or at least it seemed that way. The last 2 miles was the usual "OH Dear God, I can see the finish and it's not getting any closer" type of experience, although the cross current had disappeared and I picked it up somewhat. Nice awards. Bottom line: If you can hack the temperature and are willing to find/pay for a boat, this is definitely one that should go on your schedule. About 5 minutes after I finished, I was thinking of doing it again next year, it was that much fun. BTW, Bill Ireland, who also posts here, won the race. He did a spectacular 2nd half and just left me in his wake. -LBJ

Originally posted by jdut Just wanted to publicly acknowledge Mr Jansen's participation (and 2nd place finish) at this years' 8 mile Boston Light Swim. Great job! How did you find this swim compared to others you've done? Thanks. It was a great swim and I enjoyed it very much. The real challenge of this race is the water temperature - it was between 60 and 65 degrees (no wetsuits), varying by location. Supposedly, this is slightly "warm" for this race. The start was colder than the finish. Interestingly, at the pre-race dinner, the "locals" seemed more worried about the chop/roughness than the temperature. For the out-of-towners, it was the opposite. The other issue for this race is trying to get a support boat - good luck. I had a boat (it took weeks to find one), but the engine blew up several days before the race and it wasn't going to be fixed in time. This caused a mad scramble to find a replacement. My brother lives in the area and he is a real wheeler-dealer and he managed to get a replacement, although it probably took 10 years off his life. The race course is beautiful. I know that sounds strange, but for the first 6 miles it weaves in and out of islands that are part of a park system in the Boston Harbor. The first 4 miles were pretty smooth sailing and then it got ROUGH - so rough that I watched the bow of the boat go under several times. We then had 2-ish miles of chop and cross current and I got hammered there - just couldn't find a decent line and got pushed all over the bay, or at least it seemed that way. The last 2 miles was the usual "OH Dear God, I can see the finish and it's not getting any closer" type of experience, although the cross current had disappeared and I picked it up somewhat. Nice awards. Bottom line: If you can hack the temperature and are willing to find/pay for a boat, this is definitely one that should go on your schedule. About 5 minutes after I finished, I was thinking of doing it again next year, it was that much fun. BTW, Bill Ireland, who also posts here, won the race. He did a spectacular 2nd half and just left me in his wake. -LBJ