Wetsuit Shaming in San Francisco Divides Bay Area Swimmers | Hacker News Reader

Wetsuit Shaming in San Francisco Divides Bay Area Swimmers

wsj.com

9 pointsjbredeche23 comments

A total non-story. If someone wants to wear a wet suit, let them. Those who choose to go without one, can go without one. Those who don't have all the right to shame those who do, but those who wear them have the same right to ignore the haters, because at the end of the day it's a fucking wet suit.

People seem to suffer from some sort of amnesia when it comes to the choices of others, and that "what works for me might not work for someone else, and since I'm not perfect, aggressively making fun of someone for what they wear while swimming is totally fucking immature".

I agree with you about letting people choose what they want, but I've seen very aggressive arguments erupt about it. I'm really not sure why. I think the question is why is this happening? The article mentions people having their wetsuits stolen, for example.

Maybe it's a simple matter of people trying to impose some kind of code of behavior on others, like so much else in life. But I'm not sure in this case what the resentment is about.

With some things it makes sense. For example, in triathlon and some open water swim meets, wearing a wetsuit does give someone a speed advantage, and people kind of abuse it (for lack of a better word) to improve times when it's not necessary to wear them from a temperature perspective. But defining those boundaries where it makes sense from a safety perspective is difficult.

So maybe in some cases people are worried at some level about having to purchase and use an item they don't see as necessary for themselves? Like they're worried they'll eventually become required for whatever reason?

In any event, arguments about it can get surprisingly heated.

> But I'm not sure in this case what the resentment is about.

I believe these are all of the relevant statements from the article, in the order in which they appear:

> And yet, some Bay swimmers refuse to wear these potentially lifesaving devices because they consider them a form of cheating.

> Tom Linthicum, a swimmer called “Reptile,” has made the mile-and-a-quarter water trek from Alcatraz to San Francisco more than 200 times, but never in a wetsuit. With a wetsuit, he says, “you’re not really enjoying the cold.”

> “The land brain wants to go home, take a nap, forget about it,” he says. During times like this, he instead channels his “reptile brain,” which he believes to be an evolutionary vestige. “The reptile brain just comes out and says, ‘enjoy the water; enjoy the cold,’ ” he says. “Our ancestors may never have had a warm shower in their entire life.”

The first one isn't really backed up from what I could see. Regardless, it seems people are stealing things and throwing them away or causing damage to them[0] because they have a personal preference to not use those things. Suddenly I'm completely on the side of the outraged wetsuiters.

[0] > Over the years, in actual cold cases, wetsuits have mysteriously vanished from the changing room ... Later, the suits turned up in garbage cans or, in one case, hanging outdoors from a nail on the second floor of the building

I guess the issue is why is "cheating" relevant if there's no competition? Or are most of the Bay area swimmers also doing races?

Probably because not everyone agrees whether or not there is competition. You can have competition without it being an organized race. There are two variables in play, whether a specific person wears a wetsuit, and whether a specific person feels like there is competition. This leads to roughly four groups:

A) non-competitive wetsuit wearers B) competitive wetsuit wearers C) non-competitive non-wetsuit wearers D) competitive non-wetsuit wearers

It's not hard to see how you could get strife between group D and groups A and B. People in group A wear a wetsuit and don't see any harm because they aren't competing anyways. People in group B probably figure wearing a wetsuit is a valid way to improve your times. People in group D probably figure wearing a wetsuit is a cheaty way to improve your times and get upset.

Having this strife between groups B and D makes some amount of sense, but since this is not an official competition there's no centralized authority to decide on the issue. Group A just gets caught in the crossfire.

> For example, in triathlon and some open water swim meets, wearing a wetsuit does give someone a speed advantage

Is that because of the distance?

An extended family member is an elite swimmer (competes in USA Swimming national meets, NCAA D1 times while still in middle school, etc) and the idea that wearing 3+ mils of neoprene makes you faster is ludicrous to them.

Also, triathletes aren't always the best swimmers. A modest +5% buoyancy for them is probably more meaningful than a top swimmer.

Conservation of body heat is a huge factor alone. Not only does the competitor expend less energy in keeping warm, but muscles function more efficiently when warm.

Buoyancy is another consideration --- the wetsuit helps float the swimmer higher in the water, again, requiring less energy than would be required for a non-suited swimmer.

As cons, the wetsuit does somewhat restrict movement, though on balance that seems outweighed by other factors. Suits designed for swimming are far less thick than diving or surfing suits generally, and may be vest-and-leg designs.

That does sound like a primarily distance-based thing, thanks :)

Pool swimmers rarely exceed a few hundred meters. I think the longest individual race might be 1800 meters, and few swimmers compete at that. The negatives are going to completely dominate when you are only swimming those kind of distances.

For regularly-scheduled events, 400m (500y) is considered a longer event, and is included in most meets, whilst 1500m / 1650 y (1.5 km / about a mile) are held infrequently, and often scheduled on a separate day from other events. There's also an 800m listed in the US records:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_records_...>

Time to run a heat is roughly 7 minutes for a 500y, and 15--25 minutes for a 1650y.

Open-water swimming typically begins at about 500m / 500y (mini-triathlon) and goes up from there, with multi-mile events being fairly common. Ironman Triathlon swimming distance is 2.4 miles.

Among longer events are the Catalina Channel (20 mi), for which the men's record is 7h15m. Or if that's not enough, there's the two-way, 40 miles, 16h42m record.

<https://longswims.com/events/catalina-channel/>

The English Channel is comparable in length at 21 miles, with 2,778 swims recorded to date:

<https://www.channelswimmingassociation.com/>

Buoyancy is negligible, at least on 3 mm shorties. It's the added insulation from the cold that does the trick and makes open water swimming easier and more enjoyable. Why take that away from people?

There's been many studies showing that wetsuits give a speed advantage on average around 6% (this is on average). My understanding is it's because of the buoyancy.

There's an idea that they're less necessary for really skilled elite swimmers but that's controversial. Having worn them I can say there is definitely constriction around the arms even with good-fitting wetsuits (relative to no wetsuit material), so I understand the idea that if you're good enough the wetsuit would just get in the way (not saying I'm that good, just that the idea is consistent with my experience). However, I've also read pretty convincing arguments that if you take any swimmer and put them in a wetsuit that fits them well, on average across swimmers, they'll swim faster.

Regardless, in a typical triathlon or meet, there is usually an observed speed increase of a slight amount, which ostensibly puts someone at a speed disadvantage.

For people that aren't expert swimmers, wetsuits add buoyancy. Just as importantly, it adds buoyancy to your legs and hips which help to prevent your lower body from dragging in the water. If you're a good swimmer with great technique, you're already doing this but it definitely helps people without good form and technique.

How is it a nonstory? The article was about a culture clash and not taking the position of either side, but you implied the author said to not wear a wetsuit. I wasn't aware of this clash of cultures, as dumb as it is, so the story worked for me as a human interest story; not everything has to be about wars and mass shootings.

A non-story in the sense that a bunch of entitled people caring way too much about what is a trivial decision of someone else that has no effect on others whatsoever. This isn't about wearing a wetsuit for a competition.

It's as if I made a big deal if you decided to wear a short sleeve shirt versus a long sleeve shirt during your workout....even though your choice of attire has no impact on my workout whatsoever.

You're missing the point.

While trivial to you, the story is an example of the way in which individuals make choices that reflect their values and priorities.

It's not just about the clothes we wear, but how we present ourselves to the world, and what we stand for.

Therefore, the story can be seen as having relevance beyond the simple act of wearing or not wearing a wetsuit.

The interesting side of this may not be immediately apparent: open-water swimming in cold conditions is already a fairly niche activity, to which there's something of a natural tendency toward tribalism and clique-formation as well as an attraction to nonconformists generally. As with on land, what is worn (and why and how) says much about what tribe one belongs to, and an organisation with a long history (as the article notes, the South End Rowing Club dates its origin back 150 years) develops ... a certain institutional culture.

There's also the physical and spiritual nature of the activity --- swimming in cold water is both quite bracing and less of a formidable challenge than many might expect, though of course there is a great deal of individual variance. Non-wetsuit-wearing swimmers still do wear caps (these are mandated for safety reasons, and are high-visibility colours), often insulating heavy silicone or neoprene. There may be a sense that wetsuit-wearers are violating these norms as well, perhaps because they are intruders or outsiders to an established community.

On the pragmatic side, an improperly rinsed suit carries sand indoors which wears floors and paint, and clogs drains. Violating this practice can result in deserved criticism and sanction.

That said, despite some basis in fact, the story here likely embellishes the overall nature of the culture clash.

"That said, despite some basis in fact, the story here likely embellishes the overall nature of the culture clash."

That is the pithy, key, interpretation here.

Non-JS Readable Version [1]

[1] - https://archive.ph/Qw8t6

Unmentioned but likely related: the northern CA / SF surf culture, an adjacent group at least, has a huge contingent of shitty salty man-children intent on replaying their mediocre high school experiences of in crowd / out crowd nonsense and petty localism.

(There’s plenty of great folks too of course. But the sheer volume of garbage is surprising).

Reminds me of this old classic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book

What an embarrassment. I wouldn't want to swim in the bay without a wetsuit for fear of someone thinking I was one of these assholes.

This seems.. expected. Anything that makes something easier is gonna annoy some people for whom the difficulty was part of the point.

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