NYCkayaker Anyone doing this Sunday's Governors Island Swim

[TomBrooklyn]

> > From: mike <mpidel at optonline.net> 
>  I am always surprised they allow the guiding by kayak in these races. It
> would be a violation in any sanctioned open water-swimming event. A huge
> component of the challenge of open water swimming is the ability to navigate
> and swim in straight line,

In some of the swim support kayaking I did I too was surprised that some of the
kayakers seemed to think they had some kind of active role to play in the
proceedings.   It seemed to me the kayaks were there to assist a swimmer if they got
into trouble, not to help them otherwise in some active way.     When I did it,
there was little formal training, so I think every kayaker interpreted the job as
entailing various nuances.     

The times I did it, the whole swim/power boat/kayak support thing seemed to me like
a sort of organized but somewhat seat-of-the pants make-it-happen kind of thing.   
Sort of like a military operation--a organized clusterf*k moving in roughly the same
direction and ultimately getting the job done.   

Perhaps due to my military experience and subsequent tolerance for that kind of
operation, I thought it all worked out pretty good the times I was there.  I got a
T-shirt that didn't fit, some free food and drinks at a party, comraderie, and the
satisfaction of a job well done.   

TomBrooklyn