When A Gator Becomes A Mermaid

Eney Jones, a former top swimmer at the University of Florida (Gators) and over 20-time finalist at the USA Swimming national pool championships, is a classic crossover athlete.

Not only did she win her age-group at the 200-, 400- and 1500-meter freestyles at the 2008 US Masters Swimming national championships, but she also swam on a top Maui Channel Swim relay, won the Aumakua Swim in Maui, got third in the Waikiki Roughwater Swim and won the 2008 FINA World Masters Swimming Championship 5K in Perth, Australia.

The personable and ever-energetic Eney now lives in the Rocky Mountains, far from the oceans where she is most comfortable, but she continues to offer open water swimming instruction.

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Copyright © 2009 by World Open Water Swimming Association

Tattersalls Masters Australia No Ka 'Oi in Maui

The Tattersalls Masters Australia won the 9.5-mile Maui Channel Swim, a 6-person race between Lanai and Maui, yesterday in 3 hours 8 minutes over the RCP Tiburon Milers in another match between the rivals from either side of the Pacific Ocean.

The Tattersalls Masters Australia team consisted of Peter Thiel, former world 25K champion Brendan Capell, 2009 world 25K silver medalist Trent Grimsey, Ryan Napolean, Olympic 10K swimmer Ky Hurst and David Browne. RCP Tiburon Milers finished in 3:12:12 with Team Living Water third in 5:14:54.

On the women's side, RCP Tiburon Milers Wahines proved the creme of the feminine crop. A strong line-up of six very accomplished pool and open water swimming women won in 3:53:34.

The team included Lauren Costella, Luane Rowe, Kathryn Taylor, Dana Vollmer, Emma Berry and Amanda McTeagues.

After enjoying the tropical waters of Hawaii, many of these swimmers - including both the fastest male and female swimmers on the Tattersalls Masters Australia and the on the RCP Tiburon Milers - are now headed over to the significantly cooler waters of San Francisco Bay for the 10th annual RCP Tiburon Mile.

Todd Robinson, the new record holder in the Catalina Channel, was first solo finisher in the race, beating 46 of the 50 relay teams in a time of 3:54.

51 relays and 20 soloists started the race, but not all finished due to the challenging conditions. 2 soloists took nearly 10 hours to complete the course.

According to experienced waterman Bill Ireland who has hundreds of swims under his belt, "The conditions for the first 30-40 minutes were as bad as anyone could remember having seen at Maui or at any ocean race as heavy chop, swell and winds challenged the lead swimmers."

But the water was blue, blue, blue as can be seen in this video here.

Photos of David Browne and the victorious Tattersalls Masters Australia team by Amanda Cowen

Maui Channel Swim No Ka 'Oi

This morning, the annual 9.6-mile Maui Channel Swim will start as it always has since 1972 when Ian Emberson started the popular event.

Many follow-up their channel relay with a solo event in the Maui 'Aumākua 2.4 Mile Swim as a new alternative to the annual Labor Day Waikiki Roughwater Swim held on Oahu.

Maui no ka 'oi is translated as 'Maui is the best' in the Hawaiian language.

Trent Grimsey On Competing Around The Pacific Rim

Herbert Krabel of SlowTwitch wrote an in-depth article on world 25K championship silver medalist Trent Grimsey, the defending champion from the RCP Tiburon Mile and the Waikiki Roughwater Swim. Trent has a full schedule for the remainder of the Northern Hemisphere summer as he takes on 10K bronze medalist Fran Crippen at the US$25,000 Portland Mile and many others at the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the 9.6-mile Maui Channel Swim and US$10,000 winner-take-all RCP Tiburon Mile in San Francisco.

Photo by Elliot Karlan.

It's A Small World

Michael Read, the former King of the Channel®, once said that open water swimmers have greatly benefited from the use and improvement of technology. Everything from GPS and AIS transponders to Google Earth and intercontinental jet transportation has helped open water swimmers plan and succeed at their solo challenges and marathon swims.

With the advent of online communications, especially email and social networks, open water swimmers throughout the world have been able to much more easily and quickly communicate with one another and with race organizers and escort pilots than in the previous century.

Up until the mid-1990's, open water swimmers primarily communicated via letters, faxes and telephones. Before then, it was regular postal mail. In contrast, global communications are now nearly instantaneous and convenient. Twitter, Facebook, email, blogs, websites, online forums, Google Groups, online travel sites and mobile communication devices of all sorts have supplanted the post office and the home phone as the communication tools of choice.

Instead of waiting for a letter from one's escort pilot, Blackberries and iPhones provide immediate linkage to the global open water swimming community. Its benefits are immediate and profound.

One example of the immediate positive effects of the contemporary real-time communication is the recent appeal by Bruce McCoubrey (shown above) of Vancouver, Canada. Bruce sent a simple email to the Channel Swimmers on Google Groups, broadcasting his interest in joining a relay for a 2009 English Channel attempt.

Within hours, Bruce received feedback from numerous teams from around the world. These people had never met each other, but there was an immediate bond between each other. They did not doubt each other's intentions or abilities. They immediately established a mutual trust primarily - or perhaps exclusively - because they were all members of a Google Group for Channel Swimmers.

Bruce is now choosing what team to join and made the same appeal for a Catalina Channel relay crossing and a Maui Channel relay crossing. As a result, Bruce sitting at his home in western Canada, was able to have multiple choices in what international teams to join in swims from Hawaii to the English Channel.

Additionally, when swimmers travel around the world, they are able to track down open water swimming groups. On a trip to Bermuda, Bruce was able to find a group of swimmers who swim every morning at 6:30 am at various locations in Bermuda. The locals, members of the English Channel group, had invited Bruce via email to join their daily open water swims. The Internet's usefulness is even more profound in Bermuda: depending on the weather and water conditions, all the swimmers in the local Bermuda group are notified via email of the next day's swim spot.

Just as Walt Disney envisioned...it's truly a small world ... and getting smaller.

Lower photo is of the winning team of the Santa Barbara Channel 6x6 Relay Race.

Maui Channel Swim on ESPN – Very Briefly

During the ESPN 2 broadcast of the Texas vs. Oregon basketball game at the Maui Invitational tournament, a commercial break showed swimmers competing in the Maui Channel Swim.

It’s almost never that a masters open water swimming relay gets on ESPN – however fleetingly – but it is reported that ESPN is confidentially talking about televising a major open water swimming event in 2009.

Carbon Neutral Escort Boats in The Clean Half

Hong Kong will host The Clean Half, Asia’s only marathon swimming relay event today. 22 five-person teams and 4 solo swimmers will start from Stanley Main Beach and head 15K to Deepwater Bay.

Modeled after the Maui Channel Swim, The Clean Half offers some of the most stunning views of Hong Kong Island.


Race director Douglas Woodring offers a unique "carbon neutral" option for the relay teams. Two teams will not travel by motorized escort boat, but will instead paddle a 6-person outrigger canoe along the entire course while swimming at the same time. As the first outrigger + swimming relay race in the world, Woodring is to be celebrated for bringing his creative entrepreneurial talents to the sport of open water swimming.

Large swells are expected outside of Stanley to Round Island with scenery that is reminiscent of Hawaii. Some of the proceeds from the event will be donated to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for their Save Our Seas Campaign.

The Clean Half race results to follow.

America's Most Competitive Open Water Swims

What are the most competitive open water swims in America? Ten potential swims in this category might include the following:

1. RCP Tiburon Mile, a 1.2-mile swim in San Francisco Bay that brings in many of the world's top pool and open water swimmers, including Olympians, Olympic medalists, world 5K, 10K and 25K open water swimming champions, English Channel swimmers and FINA World Cup and FINA Grand Prix pro swimmers from over 20 countries. Offers a winner-take-all $10,000 first prize for men and women.

2. Waikiki Roughwater Swim, 2.4-mile race in Honolulu, Hawaii, where dozens of accomplished swimmers from Australia and many 20 states in America compete.

3. Trans Tahoe Relay, a 11.5-mile 6-person relay in Lake Tahoe at 6,200 feet in altitude between the states of Nevada and California, that brings in many accomplished pool and open water swimmers including world open water swimming champions, FINA World Cup and FINA Grand Prix pro swimmers, and NCAA and Olympic Trial qualifiers and top masters swimmers from dozens of states and countries.

4. Maui Channel Swim, a 9.6-mile inter-island 6-person relay between Lanai and Maui in Hawaii, that annually brings in many accomplished pool and open water swimmers including world open water swimming champions, FINA World Cup and FINA Grand Prix champions, and NCAA and Olympic Trial qualifiers and top masters swimmers from dozens of states and countries.

5. La Jolla Rough Water Swim, a multi-distance event with a showcase 3-mile swim north of San Diego, California that brings in the most accomplished open water swimmers from across the western American states.

6. Great Chesapeake Bay Swim, a 4.4-mile race across Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay that brings in many top open water swimmers from the Midwest and East Coast.

7. Any USA Swimming national 5K or 10K championship event. These events are held in various locations across the U.S. and attract America's most accomplished open water swimmers. One example of these events is the Fort Myers Open Water Festival that includes 1000-yard, 1.5K, 2.5K, 1-mile, 5K, 10K and 25K swims.

8. Big Shoulders 5K, a race in Lake Michigan in Chicago, Illinois that draws the top open water swimmers across the Midwest states.

9. Any US Masters Swimming national championship event. These events are held in various locations across the U.S. and attract America's most accomplished masters open water swimmers in distances including 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles, 6 miles and 6+ miles.

10. Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, a 28.5-mile marathon swimming race around New York City that attracts many accomplished English Channel, Catalina Channel, Cook Strait, Gibraltar Strait swimmers as well as pro marathon swimmers and accomplished pool swimmers.

What other races do you believe should be included in a legitimate top 10 most competitive open water swim list? Your comments and opinions are greatly appreciated.

Maui No Ka Oi - Tattersalls Masters Australia

The Tattersalls Masters Australia team of Peter Thiel, Brandon Capell, Josh Santacaterina, Trent Grimsey, Cameron Smith and Josh Minogue defended its 2007 title over the perennially strong RCP Tiburon Milers in the 2008 Maui Channel Swim under stunningly beautiful conditions.

Bob Placak, founder and race director of the Tiburon Mile, annually puts together strong teams (winning in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006) for the Maui Channel Swim. With a group of national and internationally ranked pool and open water swimmers - including Noa Sakamoto, John Flanagan, Larsen Jensen, Andrew Roato and John K. Koehler, Jr. - Placak looked to captain another winning team over the defending champions from Sydney.

But the younger Tattersalls team (with a cumulative age of 150 years) took off from the start and never looked back, winning in 2 hours 53 minutes and 14 seconds over the 3:00.41 time of the RCP Tiburon Milers (cumulative age of 171 years). Third place went to the Mixed Bag Island Style team of Lisa Hazen, Ryan Bise, Trevor Gillis, Brenda Newton, Dave Stewart and Brian Kohlmeier (cumulative age of 225 years).

Concurrently, race director Ian Emberson, also holds a solo race across the Maui Channel, 9.6 miles between the islands of Lanai and Maui. Bill Goding, 55, who also successfully crossed the 26-mile Molokai Channel in 2006, won the solo competition in 3:48.55, impressively finishing 12th overall (among all teams and individuals). Alan Voisard, 48, was second individually and 14th overall with a time of 3:53.37.

Many of the Maui Channel Swim participants stayed on Maui to either vacation or participate in the Maui 'Aumākua 2.4 Mile Swim and Sprint Mile that is eloquently described here,

Upper photo from Brendan Capell's Facebook page. Lower photo from the Bank of Hawaii website.

Note: "Maui No Ka Oi" means Maui is the best.

Summer Classics - Maui Channel Relays

The Maui Channel Swim is an annual open water race that is considered by many to be the world's most enjoyable open water relay. It is a masters inter-island relay with a history that dates back to 1972.

The 9.5-mile Maui Channel Swim starts at Club Lanai, a resort on the island of Lanai, and crosses the Au Au Channel to Black Rock at the Kaanapali Beach Resort on Maui. The channel is warm and beautiful where swimmers can be mesmorized by the ocean depths below as strong currents or stiff winds either push them to - or away from - their goal.

Swimmers have come from every state and dozens of countries to participate. Between legs, they can gaze upon four different Hawaiian islands (Lanai, Maui, Molokai and Oahu) if the weather cooperates.

The six-person relay, where everyone's first leg is 30 minutes long, started as a competition between the Waikiki Swim Club and the Olympic Club of San Francisco. It has now grown to a race of over 60 teams and dozens of solo swimmers who compete alongside the 6-person teams.

Additionally, swimmers can stay a few extra days in Maui for the 2.4-mile Aumakau Race and Maui Sprint Mile held on Labor Day.

The Aumakau Race and Maui Sprint Mile have a truly unique "fun rule" where swimmers can subtract one minute off their final time by swimming underwater underneath the Arch. The Arch is located 15 feet below the surface of the water towards the end of the race.

Swimmers can see plenty of coral, tropical fish, beautiful rock formations, sea turtles, manta rays, and, infrequently, sharks (mostly white tips) along both courses.

Copyright © 2008 by Steven Munatones

America's Favorite Open Water Swims

Based on the informal www.10Kswimmer.com poll, the Top 20 results of the top open water swims in the U.S. are as follows:

1. Manhattan Island Foundation races: 214 votes
2. Alcatraz Challenge: 120 votes
3. Waikiki Roughwater Swim: 79 votes
4 La Jolla Rough Water Swim: 78 votes
5. Trans Tahoe Relay: 68 votes
6. Great Chesapeake Bay Swim: 57 votes
7. Maui Channel Swim: 54 votes
8. Swims Not Listed: 46 votes
9. Catalina Channel crossings: 44 votes
10. RCP Tiburon Mile: 29 votes
11. North Shore Surf 'n Sea Swim Series: 27 votes
12. Swim Across Long Island Sound: 27 votes
13. Death Valley Open Water Swim: 25 votes
14. July 4th Fire Cracker 8000: 23 votes
15. Big Shoulders 5K Swim: 22 votes
16. Lake Berryessa Open Water Swim: 19 votes
17. American Swimming Association Series: 18 votes
18. Molokai Channel: 18 votes
19. Swim Around Key West: 17 votes
20. Pennock Island Challenge: 15 votes

Please note there are many other swims that were not initially listed and this informal and non-scientific poll was just for fun.

But it does give you an idea of the great number and variety of outstanding open water swims held across America.

Copyright © 2008 by World Open Water Swimming Association