Open Water Swimming - From the river to the Olympics

Open water swimming - from the river to the Olympics

Supervisors

• Scott Draper
  Associate Professor, Oceans Graduate School

• Grant Landers
  Lecturer, School of Human Sciences 

• Nat Benjanuvatra
  Associate Lecturer, School of Human Sciences

• Terry Griffiths
  PhD Candidate, Oceans Graduate School

• Justin Geldard
  PhD Candidate, Oceans Graduate School

Students

• Radu Alecsa
• Chelsea Xu

Project Description

Open water swimming is growing in popularity both as a new Olympic sport and as a great way to undertake low impact exercise. It is also has a rich history with the Swan River in Western Australia, with the ‘Swim thru Perth’ being the oldest open water swim in Australia. Unlike when swimming in the pool, open water swimmers often encounter surface waves. It is believed that surface waves can have a range of effects on a swimmers performance (e.g. speed) and their behaviour (e.g. swimming stroke, sighting, drafting, etc.). However, limited quantitative data has been collected. Without this, it is difficult to fine tune or validate techniques and training programs. 

This project will study the influence of waves on swimming performance and behaviour in two complimentary projects (one for each student).

Firstly, experiments that mimic Swan River wave conditions will be conducted in the wave flume to investigate swimming into waves. Classical theory on ship-wave interaction will be used to investigate the effect of a swimmers height and general anthropometry on their swimming performance. Specifically, the experiments will investigate if swimming is most difficult when the wave conditions match a swimmers natural heave and/or pitch frequency (matching these frequencies is known to be a worst-case situation of ships).

Secondly, data from open water swimming events in Western Australia will be used to investigate the effects on swimming performance and behaviour of swimming into vs. with surface waves. These swimming events tend to require swimmers to complete laps which run along the coastline. Hence South Westerly winds (typical in summer) provide an excellent opportunity to investigate this question using fixed video or drone footage (to observe swimmer speed and stroke rate) combined with detailed wave measurements (by deploying an array of seabed instruments).

Both projects will combine experimental and/or field work with modelling.

The work is a collaboration between researchers in the Oceans Graduate School and the School of Sports Science, Exercise and Health.