Swimmer's Daily

  • Read ideas.ted.com

    In 1949, a stocky Italian air force lieutenant named Raimondo Bucher decided to try a potentially deadly stunt off the coast of Capri, Italy. Bucher would sail out to the center of the lake, take a breath and hold it, and free-dive down one hundred feet to the bottom. Waiting there would be a man in a diving suit. Bucher would hand the diver a package, then kick back up to the surface. If he completed the dive, he’d win a fifty-thousand-lira bet; if he didn’t, he would drown.

    Scientists warned Bucher that, according to Boyle’s law, the dive would kill him. Formulated in the 1660s by the Anglo-Irish physicist Robert Boyle, this equation predicted the behavior of gases at various pressures, and it indicated that the pressure at a hundred feet would shrink Bucher’s lungs to the point of collapse. He dove anyway, delivered the package, and returned to the surface smiling, with his lungs perfectly intact. He won the bet, but more important, he proved all the experts wrong. Boyle’s law, which science had taken as gospel for three centuries, appeared to fall apart underwater.

    freediver photo
    Photo by jayhem

    Featured photo by jayhem

  • Read WSET

    You may want to check the beach water before you get in to swim. Researchers with the Natural Resources Defense Council monitored more than 3,000 beaches and according to the annual “Testing the Waters” report, 10% of U.S. beaches failed the government’s swimmer safety standards.

    Virginia had one of the lowest failure rates of water samples. The report says beach water pollution can cause illnesses like Hepatitis, pink eye, stomach flu and more.

    Photo by cat1788

  • Read The Baltimore Sun

    If you’ve ever said you’ve seen enough of Towson-born Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps for one lifetime, I submit to you evidence that you may have spoken too soon.

    Phelps, the record-setting Olympic swimmer, is one of 22 athletes appearing nude in ESPN The Magazine’s The Body Issue, which features photo spreads of the world’s top athletes, well, out of uniform.

    Photo by marcopako 

  • Read keepmecurrent.com

    Four active-duty Navy SEALs are preparing to swim the full 13-mile length of Sebago Lake on Aug. 21 to raise funds to send military families in need to Camp Sunshine.

    The goal of the “SEALs for Sunshine” event is to raise enough money to send 40 military families to Camp Sunshine, a one-of-a-kind national retreat in Casco for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families.

    Photo by morgandobbins

  • Read ABC

    A Mooloolaba scuba diving company is the first in Australia to offer the people the chance to swim with humpbacks from next month.

    Paul Hodda from the Australian Whale Conservation Society says it is not the right way to treat an endangered species.

    “Our main concern is that people can have a wonderful experience from the shore or on a boat with humpback whales,” he said.

    “They don’t need to push and push and push and put these animals under more potential stress.

    Photo by wwarby

  • Read CBC

    A shortage of certified officials for swimming competitions has forced organizers of the North American Indigenous Games to drop that sport from the upcoming games.

    Qualified officials are needed to oversee swimming races and there were not enough available. The games take place in Regina in July.

    “We turned over every rock and exhausted every option in order to find those certified swimming officials,” Ron Crowe, CEO of the games, told CBC News. “But unfortunately we’ve come to that conclusion. And it’s time to give our attention to the rest of the sports and activities that will be going on.”

  • See WWNYTV

    It took retired Navy chaplin Robert Manning the strength of prayer and more than 53,000 strokes to swim the English Channel three decades ago at age 49.

    “It was such a wonderful feeling,” he said.

  • See 7News and read for instance The Sydney Morning Herald

    Mining magnate Gina Rinehart asked Olympic swimming champion Grant Hackett to convince her daughter Bianca to withdraw her nomination as trustee of the family’s $5 billion trust two days before she was to give evidence in their bitter legal dispute.

    Court documents show Mrs Rinehart emailed Mr Hackett on Sunday night, writing: “Suggest you advise her urgently please, no money is worth this, she should withdraw her nomination as trustee, rather than be found a liar in the witness box”.

  • Read Boston Magazine

    “Look at the size of that fish.”

    That’s the only thing Captain Tyler Macallister could think to say when his boat, the F/V Cynthia C, came across a massive Great White shark off the coast of Cape Cod on Monday morning.

    Macallister, who takes trip out on the ocean to fish for tuna on the vessel, described the shark as roughly 16 to 18 feet in length. After spotting the shark from a distance, crew members of the F/V Cynthia C approached it, and took video as it circled around the ship.

    Post by FB Newswire.