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Comment by neerajk | Hacker News Reader

> The nominal mode enables motion through the water at 3.6 km/h, and for speed-seekers, the SEABIKE can reach a maximum of 7.9 km/h – much faster than normal swimming speeds or even flipper-assisted swimming.

https://www.nauticexpo.com/prod/seabike/product-68606-564117...

Pretty fast, but "superhuman"? For short distances Michael Phelps can swim faster :)

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Main difference is recruiting much larger muscles, so at some point most humans will be faster over a longer period with the widget. Let Phelps train with this for a couple months and he'd be faster. Although probably sad, because he likes swimming.

Michael Phelps is an alien..

Incorrect, he is an evolved dolphin.

So dolphins are aliens??

Thanks for all the fish!

For short distances Usain Bolt can run faster than most people can cycle.

For very, very short distances I can run faster than most people can cycle.

For mere fractions of a second, I can outwalk a jet.

Well that's easy, jets can't walk.

Actually I think you are making a slightly different observation about acceleration. We were talking about top-end speed, not acceleration from a standstill.

Usain Bolt is a superhuman

I’m skeptical because the limiting factor for a person using flippers is their lungs, and a propeller is less efficient for propulsion.

And their cardiovascular fitness and overall endurance

Traveling at that speed for a long distance would be beyond human capabilities, wouldn't it?

Super just means beyond, not way beyond. I blame Superman for this notion.

Not really. Most serious lap swimmers can do a kilometer every 20 minutes sustainably, akin to a marathon runner's pace (Sprint pace would be 100m/minute, with 50m/minute being what you would see in the fast lane of most recreational pools). So 3.6 kph isn't all that different, maybe a little faster than average but I assume they were also using a better-than-average bicycle person when doing the test.

There real advantage here is that you can use leg muscle. Distance swimming is all about upper body muscles, with legs being the afterburners only really used for sprinting. This machine would invert that arrangement.

Perhaps the question must be then is Michael Phelps (or whoever) faster on it?

If he or someone else breaks the record with it, he's going beyond human level speed. Until then this may only have the potential to do so.

I imagine the first bikes were slower than the top runners of the time? I see potential for the idea.

>> is Michael Phelps (or whoever) faster on it?

Nope. He would be horrible with this device. That would be like asking a champion sprinter to compete in a wheelchair race. He would be using totally different muscles, legs rather than arms, and get schooled by most everyone with a longer history. A champion bicycle rider would do better on this contraption than any champion swimmer.

(Due to water's density, champion speed swimming is also 80% technique and body shape rather than muscle/cardio. So until the technique is developed, nobody would be "good" with this thing.)

TBH I think Michael Phelps would do just fine with this. :D

Not sure why you're downvoted. Five minutes for a 500 Free is a pretty typical time for boys on highschool swim teams.

It has been a while since I was a competitive swimmer (AAA+) but imho five minutes is a very good time for 500m. That would be faster than 95% of master swimmers at such distances, and well into the 0.01% of humans overall.

Ah shit your right, I had in mind 500 (yard) Free. 500 meters in under five is very good, but still attainable by the upper tier of highschool swimmers I think. I could reliably do 500 yards in under five and was a "B relay" tier on my team.

The almost-meter Yard has got to pack its bags and go home soon. What is it even doing at this point other than causing naked numeral confusion.

A lot (most?) of American school pools are built to the yard, so it's going to stick around for a long time I'm afraid.

My youthful swimming career was done in a 33+1/3rd metre swimming pool. I haven't found another one that length.

A couple things. 500m is not actually an event. The event is 400 meters, which is roughly 500 yards. And a yard pool will only be 25 yards, not 50. So yard times are "short course" and not really valid for serious competition. A 25-meter/yard pool has fewer turns making them faster, much faster in breaststroke. And a 500-yard in a 250meter pool will include one extra lap, one extra turn, than a 400m in a 25-meter pool. Short-course/yard times all seem faster than they really should be, regardless of distance conversions.

This isn't a topic I know about, but wouldn't a 25-meter pool have more turns? But if that's a typo I can't see why stopping and turning would be a good thing?

Meters are longer than yards, by about 8%. So 500yards is loosely about the same distance as 400 meters. But 500yards divides into ten 50-yards laps, or 20 lengths of the pool. With the dive and the finish, that is 19 turns. At each turn they push off the wall and for a few seconds move much faster than when swimming in open water and a greater percentage of time underwater (which is faster). And the swimmers center of gravity doesn't get as close to the wall during a turn, effectively shortening the distance actually swam on every lap ending in a turn. But a 400-meter race in a 25-meter pool (roughly the same distance as 500 yards) has only 8 laps or 16-lengths. It has only 15 turns, meaning four fewer accelerations off the wall and less time underwater. All of these effects change based on the stroke, speed and even size of the swimmers. So there is no good direct comparison between yard and meter pools.

And then an olympic pool is 50 meters long, meaning far fewer turns for a given distance. So "long course" times are generally slower than short course even at the same distance.

(Underwater is so much faster that swimming has rules about how far you can travel underwater during each length.)

A mid tier marathon runner can do a mile every 20 mins, not a kilometer. It’s a significant difference.

I meant the effort required for the pace, not the literal speed. For a skilled swimmer, 20min per km can be maintained for a few hours, like a runner maintains marathon pace for a few hours.

This is besides the point but a 20 minute mile is a typical walking pace, not anywhere near a mid tier marathon pace (regardless of the definition of mid tier). That would be an 8:40 marathon.

Imagine how fast Phelps could swim with this!

Given that he optimized his training for swimming and not cycling I think he might do better with fins. His top speed of 7.2 - 9.6 km/h is freestyling without fins. He reached somewhere around 13 km/h using a Lunocet monofin.

I'd watch this

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