Phil White, founder of the Kingdom Games and the Northeast Kingdom Open Water Swimming Association, announced the expansion of his original Be Kind To Your Yacker Week, first established in 2009, “This year we are expanding and grabbing the whole month of April as our International Be Kind to Your Yacker Month. We’re doing this at the implore of Don Houghton, Jr. [shown below], a yacker and hooker and minstrel at our games … for decades (it seems).“
Houghton is Contributor and Crew in the Vermont Open Water Swimming Hall of Fame, Class of 2017.
White encourages the community, “If you are an open water swimmer, this is the month to do something especially nice for a yacker in your life who has supported your swims. Some have estimated that every hour of open water swimming requires 10 to 20 hours of support from others. Yes, you should be kind year round. But, this month of April is an opportunity to step it up.
It’s also a good time to pay it forward and plan to yack for another swimmer.
And yes, our Yacker Round Up is underway for Kingdom Swim on July 26th. We may also need yackers for our Willoughby Swim on August 9th. If you have yacking in your blood, we want you.
For those who are experienced yackers, but have never escorted a swimmer, we have prepared Yackers Rule – A short guide to escort kayaking.
On the quiet and magical beauty of kayaking for a swimmer at Kingdom Swim, there’s nothing better than Tasha Wallis’s account on Vermont Public Radio: A Swim in the Kingdom.“
Ode to my Yacker by Phil White
Yacker, my Yacker, wherever we roam
You water and feed me and guide my way home
Without you I’m nothing, a lost feckless soul
Locked in the lanes of my short little pool
But with paddling flashing and you by my side
The waters are open, the world is so wide
There’s nothing we can’t do, no challenge too great
One stroke at a time, my aquarian mater.
© 2025 Daily News of Open Water Swimming
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