If you want to swim a course in an open body of water that has never been attempted before somewhere around the world, there are many things to consider.

Types of Pioneering Swims

• Do you want to attempt an unprecedented course – like Alex Kostich around Bora Bora or Pitcairn Island?
• Do you want to swim longer on an established course – like Sarah Thomas across the English Channel?
• Do you want to develop new concepts – like Jacques Tuset with the prison island swims?
• Do you want to swim a course an unprecedented amount of times – like Bill Welzien around Key West?
• Do you want to create a new course on a well-known lake – like Pat Budney in Lake Erie?
• Do you want to create a new course across well-known channels – like Becca Mann on the Maui Nui Swim?
• Do you prefer to create new river swims – like Martin Strel down the Amazon River?
• Do you prefer to do a Speedo Diplomacy Swim – like Lynne Cox in the Bering Strait?
• Do you enjoy participating on new relay swims – like the Night Train Swimmers down the California coast?
• Do you like tropical crossings or warm-water swims – like the Sea Hawk Relays in India? 
• Do you like winter crossings or cold-water swims – like the Winter Relay of the English Channel?
• Do you want to swim clockwise or counterclockwise around an island – like Cindy Cleveland around Catalina Island?
• Do you prefer circumnavigation swims or point-to-point swims? Various types of swim course are listed below.
• Do you prefer swims in uninhabited areas or swims with a start and finish in an urban center?

Things to Consider

• Distance: can range from an Ice Mile to a multi-channel crossing
• Conditions: can range from a tranquil lake to a maelstrom crossing
• Temperature: can range from sub-0°C to over 33°C
• Location: can range from close to home to far away in another continent
• Equipment: assisted or non-assisted
• Support team (pilot, escort kayakers, medical support): this will require lots of planning and local expertise
• Cost: travel can be expensive if a pre-swim reconnaissance trip is necessary and weather interrupts your window
• Season: timing is critical to swim under ideal or optimal conditions – and luck plays a large role no matter what the extent of your planning
• Contingency plans: back-up plans for all aspects of the swim attempt are definitely required
• Direction: can range from north-to-south or east-to-west or vice versa or clockwise or counterclockwise
• Marine life: if you swim far from home, expect completely different marine life to be present
• Verification: do you just want to do it – or do you want official verification from the Marathon Swimmers Federation or the International Ice Swimming Association?
• Public relations: how much PR do you want? Do you want to issue press releases or simply post on Facebook?
• Charity swim: do you want to swim and raise money for your favorite cause or a local charity?
• DNF: are you prepared to deal with a DNF and try it again – or is the attempt a one-time deal?
• Approvals: do you need government approvals or are local permits required?

After you consider and decide many of the questions above, then go to Google Earth and start looking around. You can start with a particular area or island (e.g., Fiji or Lana’i). Then Zoom in and start learning about the topography and coastline of the area or channel.

Then, using the features on Google Earth, you can start to learn about distances. If a particular swim looks promising, then you can proceed with further research.

Islands

If you consider there are approximately 900,000 official islands around the world. This number includes all the officially-reported islands of each country, but in reality, the total number of islands in the world is unknown. There are hundreds of thousands of additional small and uninhabited islands that are unknown and uncounted.

Coastlines

The length of coastlines around the world is significantly long and presents all kinds of potential courses that have yet to be pioneered.

Just the coastline of Indonesia and its alone is over 99,000 kilometers and features a wide variety of landscapes, both natural and man-made.

For a list of the length of coastlines per country around the world, visit here.

Lakes

It is estimated there are over 304 million lakes in the world. Small countries like Switzerland have about 7,000 lakes while larger countries like the US have over 3 million lakes with 125,000 lakes in the 48 states of the continental US. A lake is defined as a mass of water larger than twenty acres in size (or about 15 football/soccer fields in size).

Types of Swim Courses

• A geometric course refers to the triangular, rectangular or any other multi-side shape of an open water swimming event. It generally has the start and finish at the same point, but not always. The start and finish can be in the water or on land. It can also be referred to as a loop course.
• A loop course refers to the shape of an open water swim where swimmers swim around buoys in any geometric shape (e.g., triangular or rectangular), generally starting and finishing at the same point which can be in on land or in the water at a fixed position.
• A ship-to-shore course (or boat-to-shore course or boat-to-beach course refers to a course that begins on a ship or boat or other type of marine vessel and ends on a nearby shoreline. It can also be referred to as a point-to-point course.
• A point-to-point course or a linear course refers to the shape of an open water swim where swimmers start and finish at two separate points that can be on land or in the water at a fixed position. It can also be referred to as a pier-to-pier course or P2P course.
• An out-and-back course (OAB) refers to the shape of an open water swim where swimmers or triathletes start onshore, head out to a point away from shore in a bay, ocean, sea, lake or estuary, and then return back to the finish at the same point where the swim started or around a peninsula or pier or jetty or coastal outcropping.
• A bank-to-bank course refers to a course that starts on one bank (of a river or shore) and finishes on the opposite or other bank.
• An island-to-island swim is a point-to-point swim from one island to another.
• An offshore swim where a majority or all of the swim is located far offshore, away from a continent or mainland.
• A coastal swim is an open water swim where most of the course is located along a coast or shoreline.
• A transoceanic swim is an assisted stage swim or relay across one of the world’s oceans. It can also be referred to as a transpacific swim or a transatlantic swim.
• A circumnavigation swim or circumnavigation course is a swim around an island or a round-trip open water swim around an island. It is also referred to as a circumnatation.
• A perimeter swim is a course that goes near the perimeter of a lake or bay.
• A island loop route, as defined by the Marathon Swimmers Federation, is a course that begins by entering the water from one land mass, swimming out and around an island, and then returning to the starting point.
• A buoy course is a course that is marked by turn buoys and guide buoys.
• A current neutral course is an open water swimming course where there is no impact or neutral impact on the speed of the swimmer due to currents, tides or winds.
• A stage course is one leg of a stage swim that consists of a number of swims held on consecutive days where the start of one leg begins at the end of the swim on the previous day.
• A land mass loop route is a course that begins by entering the water from one land mass, swimming out and around an inhabited or uninhabited island or rocky point or sandbar or other point of land, and then returning to the starting point or another point.

© 2024 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

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