Sea Swimming – Effects of the Tide

Swim Track

Swim Track

I’m loving my open water swimming at the moment. There’s no need to go really hard, just nice steady swims in the sunshine. I’ve just got back from another swim on the seafront here at Ynsylas. I can swim at pretty much any state of the tide and there isn’t usually too much of a current to affect things. The general longshore drift is from South to North so I normally start at Ynyslas and head south towards Borth so that when I turn around I should have the tide with me for the return leg.

That’s exactly what I did today. It was a fairly high tide when I started so I swam along just outside of the groynes. As you can see from the GPS track in the adjacent image I kept a fairly straight track and counted off groynes as I went until I got to the fourth groyne with a ‘triangle’ on the end post. I then turned around and headed back.

It was until I got back and looked at my speed for the swim that I noticed the current must have been going in the opposite direction today, North to South for a change. As you can see from the green line in the graph below, I averaged around 2.7mph whilst heading south, but immediately slowed to around 2mph on the way back.

Swim Speed

Swim Speed

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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