I am responsible for booking the venue for our SCY state championship meet in 2012. The location we have been using for the past 10 years is getting too small for us. A new pool has opened up in the area with a lot more seating and deck space. The pool is a 25Y by 50M pool with two bulk heads. For SCY competition, the two bulk heads are used right in the middle of the pool with warmup/cool down lanes on either side of the bulk heads. A couple of issues have been raised concerning the configuration of the pool as it pertains to Masters swimmers and I am hoping to get some opinions on these issues.
1. Bulk head starts - while the pool can be used for SCY swimming from wall to wall, the touch pads and starting system are meant for the bulkhead and the starting system is integrated into the bulkhead. The bulkhead isn't that wide (~6 feet) and some are concerned swimmers will fall off the bulkhead.
2. The other issue is that the bulk heads have "cut outs" above the waterline and some are concerned bad flip turns will result in feet going into these cut outs. They wouldn't get stuck but since the material on the bulk head is a little rough (to prevent slipping) it could result in cuts.
Any thoughts or experiences with running large meets in this type of configuration. I could post some pictures of the pool if that would be of any help.
Thanks,
Brian
You have a few options. You could swim width-wise and just rent a harness for the touchpads, assuming there are holes in the deck for blocks. This is my least favorite of your options because:
(1) Your lanes are probably narrower set up that way (our pool is very similar to yours and lanes are 9 feet wide when swimming length-wise and 8 feet wide when swimming width-wise).
(2)Swimmers would rather turn on a bulkhead than a wall as they are less slippery.
(3) The pool is faster swimming into a bulkhead as the waves flow thru the bulkhead instead of bouncing off the wall and right back at the swimmer.
The way the picture you included is the fastest possible way to set up the pool. The only problem with this setup is it's very very tight with 8 swimmers and 16 timers on one bulkhead. We run our biggest college meet of the year like that and while it's fast, it's also very crowded on that bulkhead. Usually we have 4 swimmers walk in from one side and 4 swimmers walk in from the other side. Then after the race they don't walk off the bulkhead because it's too crowded but rather climb straight over the bulkhead and fall into the warm down lanes.
If you decide the bulkhead is too small your third and possibly best option is to swim bulkhead to bulkhead but shift the whole thing to the deep end. That way you're still using the blocks and touchpads like you had intended but you have all the area under the diving boards for timers & swimmers. Put a towel on the end of the one-meter diving boards and lift them up to lean against the wall behind them to get them out of the way.
Depending on how shallow the shallow end is you could also shift the entire setup to the shallow end to avoid the diving board issue. I just can't tell from your picture whether the pool is deep enough in the shallow end, and whether you can put blocks and plug in touchpads on the shallow end bulkhead.
I guess you have to think about backstroke flag holes and the "T" markings on the bottom of the pool too. If you don't have those then you can't move the bulkheads to another location.
You have a few options. You could swim width-wise and just rent a harness for the touchpads, assuming there are holes in the deck for blocks. This is my least favorite of your options because:
(1) Your lanes are probably narrower set up that way (our pool is very similar to yours and lanes are 9 feet wide when swimming length-wise and 8 feet wide when swimming width-wise).
(2)Swimmers would rather turn on a bulkhead than a wall as they are less slippery.
(3) The pool is faster swimming into a bulkhead as the waves flow thru the bulkhead instead of bouncing off the wall and right back at the swimmer.
The way the picture you included is the fastest possible way to set up the pool. The only problem with this setup is it's very very tight with 8 swimmers and 16 timers on one bulkhead. We run our biggest college meet of the year like that and while it's fast, it's also very crowded on that bulkhead. Usually we have 4 swimmers walk in from one side and 4 swimmers walk in from the other side. Then after the race they don't walk off the bulkhead because it's too crowded but rather climb straight over the bulkhead and fall into the warm down lanes.
If you decide the bulkhead is too small your third and possibly best option is to swim bulkhead to bulkhead but shift the whole thing to the deep end. That way you're still using the blocks and touchpads like you had intended but you have all the area under the diving boards for timers & swimmers. Put a towel on the end of the one-meter diving boards and lift them up to lean against the wall behind them to get them out of the way.
Depending on how shallow the shallow end is you could also shift the entire setup to the shallow end to avoid the diving board issue. I just can't tell from your picture whether the pool is deep enough in the shallow end, and whether you can put blocks and plug in touchpads on the shallow end bulkhead.
I guess you have to think about backstroke flag holes and the "T" markings on the bottom of the pool too. If you don't have those then you can't move the bulkheads to another location.
