Open-water swimming has grown exponentially over last 15-years. I remember when event director of Horsetooth 10K swim in Colorado contacted to me and wanted to know if I as going to enter that year. He said he was just about at there limit for entries, I was dumbfounded as for the first couple of years of this race there were about two dozen of us who did it and most of us knew each other, now all of sudden he was at 48 of 50 max. The Horsetooth race remains a favorite for me and has become a destination race for many because of it's unique point to point course and a beautiful setting in the foothills outside of Ft Collins, Colorado. But because it's point to point it cannot be done safely without motorized water craft patrolling the course. The USMS national Championship designation does have some appeal for me and now that registration is open I may do the LV10K, but to be honest I can do 1500 meter closed loop courses locally. With the growth of this sport has come interesting and fun destination swims like Kingdom swim in Vermont, Dave Barra's staged swim down the Hudson, the Bridges swim in Portland etc. If I'm going to hop on a plane for a swim, like many of my veteran open-water swimming colleagues I want something more then a boring looped course on a flat lake. Maybe I'm just out of step but I don't understand the rationals and apologetic's for this. It's not a good thing for the growth of this sport. I don't know who USMS insurance provider is, and there likely stuck with this for 2013, but if I were on the USMS board I'd start shopping for some other Insurance provider or a way around this for the future
It is official, USMS pulled out of the Kingdom Swim 10-mile championships. The championship swim will now be a WOWSA 10-mile World OW championship!
I wish I could do that this year too. (On the other hand, I am happy to be going to Alaska for two weeks in June!) Really glad you are able to make it work.
It is official, USMS pulled out of the Kingdom Swim 10-mile championships. The championship swim will now be a WOWSA 10-mile World OW championship!
It really is sad how this is all playing out. I'll still be at Kingdom again this year, even if my dreams of a USMS patch have washed away. Hope others will not change their minds, either.
But for all practical purposes, for any swim that would require motorized boats for safety purposes, this year anyway, USMS is effectively out of the open water swimming business :-(
I think you are exaggerating. It's probably difficult, maybe impossible, to satisfy the new rules for a swim that requires motorized boats to accompany each swimmer, but those swims are a minority of USMS-sanctioned OW events. Swims that involve laps around a closed course, where primary safety support is from paddlers, seem for the most part to be able to satisfy the new boat rules (which exempt police boats, for instance).
In fact, registration for the Las Vegas 10K (4 laps) that prompted this thread is now open: http://www.lv10k.com/. And although prop guards and private boat insurance may be the bigger issue overall, the website for this race says, "Due to sanctioning changes, we are unable to accommodate swimmers under 18 years old."
Chaos, you may not have been strong enough. I just heard through a reliable source that the Kingdom Swim had to forsake there USMS Championship designation for the 10-Mile event. I also understand the race will go on without USMS. But for all practical purposes, for any swim that would require motorized boats for safety purposes, this year anyway, USMS is effectively out of the open water swimming business :-(
It is official, USMS pulled out of the Kingdom Swim 10-mile championships. The championship swim will now be a WOWSA 10-mile World OW championship!
It is official, USMS pulled out of the Kingdom Swim 10-mile championships. The championship swim will now be a WOWSA 10-mile World OW championship! Awesome! :applaud:
That's a bit much, don't you think?
Hardly....
and I’ll say it again: this isn’t about safety, its about liability.
One would think with 58,000 members, USMS would have the leverage to shop around for insurance. I don’t know who came up with the prop guard requirement, but I can tell you it certainly wasn’t anyone who has ever operated a safety boat for an OW event.
I believe that it was an insurance requirement if I remember our last LMSC meeting correctly (our chair was a member of the OW task force, but possibly I am mis-remembering). I think they did shop around and this was the best they could do. I'm sure that USMS would welcome input from race directors, but maybe insuring 150 events across the nation is a more complicated thing than insuring one event or event series.
Of course it is about liability, but that isn't as completely divorced from safety as you claim. You don't have a lawsuit without an incident.
We received notice that there were going to be some changes to the sanctioning process... listed were such new requirements as recommended by the OW task force and were pending approval by the OW committee.
I immediately contacted my insurance provider to see exactly what sort of $$$’s it would take for boaters to obtain the “proposed” $1,000,000 policy. Conclusion; this policy is not available for non commercial vessels. Thats research by a race director.
I have run my boat both with and without a prop-guard. Top speed without is 34 mph, top speed with is 30% less.... an unacceptable loss of performance. Thats input from a race director.
The OW committee voted to approve the recommendations by the OW task force (any surprises?). I’m curious as to how much input from race directors was actually weighed as there doesn’t seem like there was a whole lot of time for directors to absorb this info, do all the research, and provide an informed opinion to the OW committee before the adoption of said recommendations.
A 16 year old volunteer on a jet ski zipping through the race course at 50 mph would be in compliance with the new regulations, but a boston whaler with a 4’ dive door and a pilot with 1000 hours of swimmer escort experience would not....
Tell me again about safety and liability.....
Hardly....
and I’ll say it again: this isn’t about safety, its about liability.
One would think with 58,000 members, USMS would have the leverage to shop around for insurance. I don’t know who came up with the prop guard requirement, but I can tell you it certainly wasn’t anyone who has ever operated a safety boat for an OW event.
I believe that it was an insurance requirement if I remember our last LMSC meeting correctly (our chair was a member of the OW task force, but possibly I am mis-remembering). I think they did shop around and this was the best they could do. I'm sure that USMS would welcome input from race directors, but maybe insuring 150 events across the nation is a more complicated thing than insuring one event or event series.
Of course it is about liability, but that isn't as completely divorced from safety as you claim. You don't have a lawsuit without an incident.
Not that unique: Among my personal swimming acquaintances, more do not swim with a team and have never participated in a pool meet than do. They join for one or two OW swims, have never read the forums (so wouldn't respond to a poll), don't have a flog....
While it is hard to argue with "personal acquaintances" for accuracy, I did try to get a measure of pool/OW event participation rates from our LMSC of about 1100 members in the year 2012. More details are here, but to summarize: almost 40% (38.8%) of our membership participated in either an OW or pool event, with almost 12% participating solely in OW event(s) and 24% solely in pool event(s). The numbers do not add up to the total since some members participated in both types of events.
I can't say how representative our LMSC is of others, some of which may be far more OW-oriented than ours. And possibly the numbers are biased negatively for OW participation because of the 13 events considered, only 4 were OW events (partly b/c we sanction fewer OW events than pool events and partly because OW event results are usually in a format that makes them more difficult to tie into our registration database).
From the perspective of a rather disinterested (possibly less informed but also unbiased) observer, I think that USMS has demonstrated a pretty strong commitment to OW events. Heck, it seemed to me that the last SWIMMER magazine had almost nothing BUT items dedicated to OW. I can understand the frustration and anger of OW event directors and participants but I think that USMS just got caught in a bind this year. Hopefully in a couple years it will all be behind us.
A 16 year old volunteer on a jet ski zipping through the race course at 50 mph would be in compliance with the new regulations, but a boston whaler with a 4’ dive door and a pilot with 1000 hours of swimmer escort experience would not....I had hoped to someday participate in one of your swims. But if your only two options for safety watercraft are some guy in a Boston Whaler who refuses to show he is insured or a teenager going 50 on a jet ski; then I’ll take a pass. And stick with my swims in secluded puddles with trained water-front lifeguards in kayaks and Fire & Rescue on jet skis with rescue boards.
I have run my boat both with and without a prop-guard. Top speed without is 34 mph, top speed with is 30% less.... an unacceptable loss of performance.In my 30+ years of being an open water swimmer and race director, I’ve never seen an instance where a one of my safety or escort boats needed to be traveling anywhere near 34 MPH. In my opinion, anyone going that fast on an active race course is reckless and dangerous. That’s input from a race director.
