Open water record attempt

Fred P Newton completes longest swim ever (1826 miles), when he swam in the Mississippi River from Ford Dam, Minn, to New Orleans, My freind Korky Kellum also swam over 350miles non stop in the Mississipi in 1938.

This is madness! Puts my one mile bay swim to some serious shame! :D

Has there been a calculation of the Gulf Stream current for the Cuba swim and River swims (I imagine downriver)? I'm sure these have aided some of the swims, although the swims whether with current or not are truly amazing.

For reference, here are the FINA rules on open water swimming. www.fina.org/.../rules_ows6.htm OWS 6.7-6.9 would appear to disqualify all of these swims as official swims under International Marathon Swimming rules. One can always find other organizations to try and certify records, but FINA, the Channel Swimming Association, and USA Swimming are all in agreement on these rules. There are conflicting accounts- but this planned swim doesn't seem to break either the 96-mile non-wetsuit swim or the 312-mile wetsuit Danube River swim 312 miles Two to look into: "In 2001 Martin Strel swam 504 KM or 312 miles down the Danube river. He covered the distance in 84 hours 10 minutes of nonstop swimming" "In 1998, Australian Susie Maroney swam 196 kilometres from Mexico to Cuba in 38 hours and 33 minutes, according to the Guinness World Records Web site. Guinness described the feat as the longest distance ever swum without flippers in open sea, while Dreyer called it the world distance record for a continuous swim. " Susie's swim would have been much easier if she would have had a wetsuit- the first time she tried, she pulled out after 3/4 of the way with extensive jellyfish stings!

FINA the newcomer to Longdistance swimming. Most records were recorded by professional marathon swimmers, That is when Fina was all about amatuer swimming.

I swam 20 miles down the Saguenay river in 2 hrs with the river current. The next 8 miles into the Bai De Hah Hah took 7 hours against the tide.

JIm's swims are amazing- no doubt about it. They also break a lot of FINA and USMS rules . The world distance record was set in standard swim costume. Jim always uses at least a wetsuit and neoprene cap, sometimes two. He sometimes is is own observer, with no official witness available. His swims over the last few years were very impressive- don't get me wrong, but they were NOT the same to Vicki Keith's Great Lakes records, some of which were done butterfly!!! To see the listed records for the Great Lakes, done under marathon swimming rules, go to www.soloswims.com/swim-list.htm

Regardless of currents, since every open water swim in big water has them, there should at least be a separate category of records for swims done in swimming gear and those done in wetsuits. Not necessarily for the warmth factor, but because most swimmers are faster in wetsuits. There is little debate about that, as opposed to the debate about fastskins. SOme of the wetsuits now have grip pads inside the arms to add to catching surface area!

in the triathlon aspect they have been saying (who is they--lol!) but anyways, supposedly with a wetsuit you are 10% faster than without...

I respect his dedication to a good cause--raising money for Big Brothers and Sisters. I think he is a phenominal athlete. I also think he is out of his mind swimming without an escort boat. This swim has plenty of challenging conditions, and if he was only after the achievement, there are ways to set the ground rules such that the boat is no help. The only think doing it unescorted accomplishes is making it much more dangerous than it needs to be. Taking necessary risks to do great things is admirable. Taking unnecessary risks is idiotic show boating. Also, who's gonna comfirm his count that he really made the 31 crossings he needs? There are process reasons FINA requires witnesses for officially recognized endurance records. Matt