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Various Pool Sizes

ForceDJ
As a winter resident of NE Ft. Lauderdale, FL I have a membership at the Pompano Beach municipal pools. I usually swim at the main aquatics center which is usually set up for 25 SCM, occasionally 50 LCM. The other day I went to swim at the Pompano’s other pool facility, Houston/Sworn Aquatic Center. It was my first time at that pool. Thinking it was 25m, after just a couple laps, and looking at the pace clock, I realized that it’s 25 SCY. Anyway, that got me thinking about the different pools I’ve swam in, and their various sizes. That is, pools that are lined, and set up for lap swimming. What odd-size pool have you swam in?
20 yards — Oliver Bath House, Pitt, PA.
25 yards — numerous
25 meters — numerous
100 ft (33.33 yards) — Deep Eddy Pool, Austin, TX.
35 yards — Naval Station Newport, RI (two indoor pools now razed), and at Fort Meade, MD (outdoor, converted to 25m using Jersey barriers.)
50 yard — Purdue Univ Rec Center, and NAS Jacksonville, FL
50 meter — numerous (Including the Olympic pool in Sydney, Australia where I just narrowly missed learning the hard way that “circle swimming in Australia is in the opposite direction than in North America.) 
Dan

  • I swam regularly at one pool at a facility that had basically built the pool to fit the space. They said it was 25 yards, but they had absolutely no idea. I measured it and it was almost exactly 20 m. That was not their intention. They just built the pool to fit the space

  • Regarding the pools in my OP that are 35 yards…one was my regular pool for many years. It was on the local Navy base in Newport, RI (I’m retired Navy), and in the 60s or 70s it had been converted from a water survival training pool, then turned over to the base recreation department and set it up for lap swimming (there were actually two of these pools on the base). I sought the answer to why 35 yards for a long time. No one knew. Then, I transferred to Fort Meade, MD and encountered one there. That’s where they had used jersey barriers placed in the shallow end set precisely to make the lap swimming area 25 meters. The remainder 9-10 yards of shallow area was a play area for kids. Someone there explained that the military built their training pools at odd lengths so that swim teams wouldn’t request use of the pool for meets since it couldn’t be used for official results. 

    Regarding the 100 yard pool at Deep Eddy in Austin…someone told me that in the early 1900s, 100-foot pools were a common size at high-end resorts. Interestingly, that’s a pretty cool pool. There are actually two, side-by-side. On alternating days, they’re filled with water from the Deep Eddy aquifer spring, around 75°F. No chemicals are added. While that pool is used, the other is drained and slightly scrubbed. Then re-filled and used the next day. Open every day (even Xmas I believe). Lifeguard told me he’s even sat on the stand in snow. 
    Dan

  • I grew up swimming age group in a pool that was 16 3/4 meters long (it still exists and hosts age groupers). 4 lanes. The older groups "graduated" to the 25m pool next to it, so eventually, I got to play in the big pool as well.
    I also once swam in a pool that was about 90 meters long (Inselbad Stuttgart - it has since been renovated and downsized). It was not set up with lanelines, so it doesn't count under your criteria. It was an interesting swim regardless.
    I also swam in university pools in Germany, which are usually built 20m long to avoid them being used for competitive swimming/racing.

  • There are a number of pools here in the Philly area that are 55 yards, (including the pool at Upenn, but that is usually set up as one 25 scy pool and one 25 scm pool with a bulkhead in the middle.) Apparently there was a school of thought back in the 1960s that 55 yard pools would be some kind of standard. Note that 30 lengths of a 55 yard pool is 1650 yards, just like 30 lengths of a 50 LCM pool is 1500 meters, making the yards and meters events close to comparable.

    There are also 33 yard pools, including the one at Mermaid Lake where Shoulberg's gang trained in the summer. (I have not swum there.) Some consider it a good training pool to prepare for both SCY and LCM.

    Just down the road from where I live there is an outdoor 49 yard pool. Rumor has it that the pool was intentionally constructed to this peculiar length so that there would be no competition for lane space with competitive teams. Apparently it dd not work because Shoulberg's gang used this pool some in the past too. I trained here (alone). SCY intervals work just about right - that missing yard compensates for the missing turn.

    20 yard pools were somewhat common maybe 1930-1960. A number of mid-western high schools still raced in 20 yard pools back in the 1970s, (but none in my conference).

    When I lived in TN the health club to which I was a member had a 55 foot (18.333 yard) pool. I used to consider 11 lengths (201.67 yards) to be a "200". The extra turns more than compensate for the extra 1.67 yards - one you get adjusted to the oxygen debt of all those turns so those "200s" are faster than scy 200s. I think this is just about the practical limit of the shortest pool one can reasonably train in. My neighbor has a 50 foot pool in his back yard. It's definitely too short for holding a swim workout.

  • in reply to Allen Stark

    There is a golf club near here that has a 22.5 yard pool for the same reason. I was member there many years ago. I was trying to recover from a rough illness. The short pool made me feel fast, which was good for my mental health. There are only 4 lanes. They limited swim time to 24 minutes.

  • in reply to Karl_S

    I wonder if a tape measure were put to that Mermaid Lake pool if it’d actually measure 33⅓ yards (100 feet) putting it with the 100 foot resort pools mentioned in my OP.

    Dan 

  • 100.5M outdoor pool in Oak Ridge, TN.  For perspective, the short lanes to the bulkheads are 25M:

  • Vancouver, BC has a 150 yard pool:

    https://www.tripsavvy.com/canadas-longest-pool-kitsilano-pool-vancouver-3371315

    I was there once but it was so insanely busy one could not even contemplate "swimming". I went for a walk.

  • in reply to ForceDJ

    Club team practices there in the Summer.  Had 3 kids on the team over the years, and was on the board.  The pool length was rumored to be all sorts of various lengths over the years, from 104-108M mostly, until one of the board members who owns a survey company measured it.  But yeah, one lap of fly kills you.