A friend is hosting a 1 mile ocean swim in the Atlantic Ocean next month with approximately 250 swimmers aged 9-90. Since the swim has grown over the years, having a mass start has proven unwieldy and he'd like to break up the swim into different waves.
Does anyone have any ideas how to divide up swimmers into different waves? In this case, we don't know the speed of the majority of the swimmers so sending the fast swimmers off before the slow ones (especially due to the large number of beginners) would be difficult to do in advance. Each wave would be given different colored bathing caps and unique numbers (e.g. Wave 1 is 101-199, Wave 2 is 200-299 etc).
I was going to propose having an under-18 wave and a 19-up wave, which would reduce the number of swimmers in each wave somewhat, but any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance!
Big Shoulders in Chicago uses a wave start. They have an elite wave that goes off first based on seed times. After that the waves are age based with younger swimmers going first. This start works well for a swim that involves 800+ swimmers.
I just swam an event a couple of weeks ago that started two waves based on seed time with faster seed times going first. I much prefer that method if possible as it prevents faster swimmers from running over / having to pick their way through (depending on one's perspective) slower swimmers.
I also do a swim in which there is a male wave and then a female wave. I don't care for that as I'm sure it penalizes female swimmers who have to navigate slower male swimmers on the course.
Big Shoulders in Chicago uses a wave start. They have an elite wave that goes off first based on seed times. After that the waves are age based with younger swimmers going first. This start works well for a swim that involves 800+ swimmers.
I just swam an event a couple of weeks ago that started two waves based on seed time with faster seed times going first. I much prefer that method if possible as it prevents faster swimmers from running over / having to pick their way through (depending on one's perspective) slower swimmers.
I also do a swim in which there is a male wave and then a female wave. I don't care for that as I'm sure it penalizes female swimmers who have to navigate slower male swimmers on the course.
