The wetsuit debate

To swim Foveaux Strait at all is a wonderful achievement, but it is time that your newspaper started to distinguish between swimmers who have swum the strait wearing wetsuits and those who have not.

Of the swimmers who are now credited with having swum Foveaux Strait, Hannah Morgan (pictured) and Wayne Evans both wore wetsuits. The other swimmers did not. Wayne Evans, an exceptionally good pool and open water swimmer, was the first to point out that he had done the crossing while wearing a wetsuit, knowing the advantage which it gave.

When Foveaux Strait was first swum in 1963 by John van Leeuwen, wetsuits were of course unknown and that was also the case through the 1970s and 1980s when most of the previous swims were done.

Some of the swimmers were known for having to undertake special diets to put on body weight so they could cope with the intense cold.

A number of the swimmers who swam this strait were then, or later became, members of the Foveaux Masters Swim Club, hence the club’s interest.

The wearing of a wetsuit provides buoyancy and warmth.

It makes a huge difference in a long, open-water swim and it enables the swimmer to tolerate the cold and avoid some of the muscular effort involved in keeping the body driving forward.

Fina (the world governing body for swimming) prohibits the wearing of wetsuits for all its open-water competition events, which includes swims of up to 25 kilometres.

Swimmers wear approved swimwear with no buoyancy assistance.

Down in the southern part of New Zealand, we are used now to seeing swimmers wearing wetsuits in competitions.

This is fine and it is practical for wetsuits to be worn as, without them, many swimmers would not compete at all in the cool water.

But, when it comes to epic swims such as the crossing of Foveaux Strait, it is important that you do not do the previous swimmers, who swam the distance without wetsuits, a disservice by lumping them in with those swimmers who have had the major advantage of the buoyancy and warmth of wetsuits.

The difference matters.

Roger Eagles and Jenny Pascoe Foveaux Masters Swim Club Mr Merlin was trading as Treatz n Treasurez. This was a well known toy shop in Winton and throughout New Zealand for many years. It is wonderful to see the truth prevail and justice carried out, to restore the trust every person who engages a professional registered chartered accountant that they can expect honesty and integrity.

Wayne Harper

Abridged, Editor