Happy reading, and don't forget to scroll down to the bottom of the page for photos sent in by other swimmers and support crew on how they have managed their own swims. Have suggestions, photos or videos from your own experiences you'd like to share here to help this resource grow and evolve? Let's chat, send me an email! wildbigswim@gmail.com​​
14.1 Monitoring the waterway for hazards
The crew and everyone else on the boat need to continuously scan the waterway for hazards of any kind - this includes things like floating logs, aquatic critters, and speeding motorcraft who may not see the swimmer in the water.​ The swim organization and boat pilot should provide the crew with their protocol for monitoring and alerting others to hazards. This could include blowing a whistle or holding up a big sign to catch the attention of the swimmer or of passing motorcraft.
Someone please add a comma to that sign after "slow"!!!
Robin Batchelor, Manhattan Island 2025
14.2 Finding the swimmer's estimated finish time
Find out if the swim will be using a a navigation app to plot the route (Navionics, for example) and/or an adventure tracker app to document the swimmer's progress (Track RS, for example). Both types of apps should have a feature that shows the swimmer's pace and estimated finish time, which will give you a sense of how far out from the finish the swimmer is at any given time. It's important to understand how the tracker being used calculates estimated finish time, though:
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Navionics can be programmed in a number of different ways, but typically uses the swimmer's pace in the moment to calculate the estimated finish time, which means the time fluctuates continuously from minute to minute.
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Track RS uses the last 5 data points, which are each 10 minutes apart (so roughly an hour of swimming/feed stops), to plot out the swimmer's pace trend over time as a way to calculate the estimated finish time - which is a more accurate way for the crew to assess progress.​​​​​​
Navionics
Track RS
14.3 At what point is forward progress an issue?
The crew will need to consider a combination of factors:
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Is the swimmer safe? Watch over the swimmer's stroke rate and pace throughout the swim, they will likely decline a little as they get tired, but the crew should be able to get a sense of whether the decline is concerning or not. Is the decline slight or drastic, over time or sudden? What are the factors that could be contributing to the decline, and can they be managed in any way to help the swimmer? Consider mindset, body and weather conditions.
See Section 12 - Monitoring the Swimmer's Mindset for ideas to help keep the swimmer motivated and moving forward
​ See Section 13 - Monitoring the Swimmer's Body for information of issues that could affect the swimmer
See Section 16 - What if the swim needs to end early? for ways to manage an emerging issue
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Does the swim organization have any specific cut-off points or limits to overall time on the water? If so, the swimmer will be pulled from the water if they cannot meet these cut-offs or time limits.
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If there are no cut-offs or time limits imposed by the swim organization, does the swimmer want to keep swimming even if there is no conceivable way they can finish the swim? Does continuing to swim at a slower pace for a longer period of time than planned increase the risk of something bad happening to the swimmer? Ask your swimmer about their hard limits if there is no way they can finish the swim and how far/long they want to keep going to explore their abilities or gain more experience.
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If the estimated finish time is longer than expected, do you have enough supplies to keep going? In your planning, talk about and pack supplies for the absolute longest the swim might go - swimmer feeds and backups feeds, and crew supplies too. And then pack a little more on top of that, just in case!​​​​​​​​