New York Swim Manhattan Island Relays

 On Saturday I was a volunteer kayaker for New York Swim.  Manhattan Island Relays. They do many different swimming events and use kayakers to help shepherd the swimmers to keep them on course. On the longer races they assign one kayaker and one support boat  to a swimmer or team. They kayakers gathered early to register and for a final orientation at North Cove  at the end of Battery Park City just across from Ground Zero.
 I was assigned to the team Greenwich Masters from Greenwich CT: Anton, Sean, Adrian and Sam. The race began at south cove with the first wave of swimmers in Zodiacs and the others in the support boat.

There were 3 ft. standing waves in the east river to swim through

Anton, Sean, Adrian and Sam.were all great guys and amazing swimmers. Although they started out in the 3rd wave they very quickly moved to the front of the pack. Here we are coming around the Staten Island Ferry approaching the Brooklyn Bridge. By the time we got to one of the bridges just north of the  Triboro Bridge they were in first place. They maintained that all the way into the Hudson until somewhere near 79th St. when a swimmer coming from closer to shore moved ahead.


They were still very close until the whole race was interrupted by the Norwegian Gem Cruise ship was backing out. All had to stop and mark their time and gps place until the ship left.   The final leg of the race was close and they were getting very close. We're still not sure who won. I was really proud of them for a great swim and privileged to be part of this special day.Here are a few video clips and my gps track. A NYSwim video can be found by pressing HERE.