UKH

This is a bit of an odd article.  Fire services telling people not to swim. Would they do that with climbing, or just cycling with similar numbers of deaths?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/23/at-least-17-people-drown-in...

I wondered how long it would be before they came for the open water swimmers.  We are or in my case were, lucky as climbers. A long established activity with an association with great feats of imperial daring do in mountaineering.  

I have heard criticism of climbers being somehow responsible for setting an example to Joe Public when he gets stuck on a crag, again in a coastal context.

Anyway took my inflatable to the seaside and got a badly bruised knee due to an awkward fall descending from an island summit.

I sometimes wonder if the very simple messaging over open water swimming, combined with people seeing other people doing it with no problems, is actually a harmful approach to managing the risk.

I think clear, consistent messaging on the actual risk factors and how to manage them is preferable.  

In reply to Fat Bumbly2:

I think swimming sets a more enticing example than roped climbing because it involves no kit and is much more familiar to many/most people.

I try and avoid places where people are going to copy me these days; I had two people follow me in through 6' breakers in Big Sur some years back; they discussed how I'd been timing my dives under the waves to get passed them, and decided to give it a go.  They took rather a pummelling.  Whoops.  Likewise I watched a drunk lad copy some others jumping in off Low Force once, only he did't think to jump from the same spot.  Ouch.

There are a few standard places around here where you can find people in the river on a hot day.

Quite a few bridges being jumped off, too - there's a tree in one spot that has (had? It's a while since I've been there) foot steps nailed to it, so you can climb up it to jump in.

The problem is that people just don't appreciate the dangers or how to manage them - mainly cold water shock, currents and hidden obstacles.

I saw this the other day:

https://www.barnsleychronicle.com/article/21168/dangerous-quarry-water-coul...

I don't know all the ins and outs (a councillor says something about another life being lost but it's not clear if anyone died here), but it seemed quite an overreaction to some teenagers swimming. I would occasionally swim in rivers, lakes and the sea as a young un (and still do), should they all be drained?

In the photo it looks like a reasonably nice swimming spot.

This is quite amusing, swimming in inland murky waters carries a lot of concern from me due to not being able to see the bottom like I can in the sea here, yet people used to swimming in inland murky waters have a massive fear of the sea here because it moves.  The simple fact is that not so many people grow up swimming in dodgy places as they used to, and thus are unaware of the risks.  Conversely, I suspect loads more people died in the old days yet we didn't get to hear about it. Double-conversely, I suspect fewer people swum in the old days due to fewer swimming pools.

The RNLI seem to be taking a different approach; that of education about dealing with cold shock, and enjoying open water swimming safely. Their adverts have popped up quite a few times recently on my Facebook feed.

https://rnli.org/safety/know-the-risks/cold-water-shock

I hope no one wants to drain Red Tarn (Helvellyn)!   I had two lovely swims there earlier this week, camping on the plateau above Striding Edge.  The second swim was nearly an hour!

The evening swim was accompanied by frogs croaking, marvellous.

I thank my stars for not being good at sports at school and therefore being put into an activity group to do lifesaving and personal survival swimming awards that developed knowledge of water hazards, precautions and swimming endurance and confidence (certainly not speed, in my case!)

So, in general, UKC isn't for a ban on swimming.  Good to know!!

I am looking at wetsuits intermittently.  Any advice - probably loch swimming  or enclosed sea?

I think you're misinterpreting this. Every hot summer there's an issue and lives are lost. No problems with open water swimmers, the problem is people who aren't open water swimmers having a few cans of special brew then deciding to swim in a pond full of weed (tangling hazard) or go to a river and get close to or clamber over a weir (weirs are surprisingly dangerous, and can trap you underwater). People who aren't swimmers are the ones they want to dissuade. 

The simple fact is that not so many people grow up swimming in dodgy places as they used to, and thus are unaware of the risks.

I would agree with that. Why else would people need to buy books such as 'wild swimming', or for that matter 'wild running' or even 'wild walking'. Covid shoved a lot of people into the outdoors that wouldnt necessarily have been there otherwise, and so, find themselves out of their depth, so to speak.

Excuse my ignorance, but since when has it been called "open water swimming"? I thought it used to be called just "swimming". Sounds a little like more "wild X-ing" bollocks to me.

Yes, just as awful as "wild camping" (and presumably just a posh name for the equally awful "wild swimming". I so hate this stuff.

No, it differentiates from pool swimming. Like trad v indoor/sport. It's a legitimate distinction. 

My Mrs has "wild swum" for years. In a swimming costume. None of your namby wet suits

PS I HATE swimming. It's like abseiling. It's a thing you do if your boating has gone wrong

completely agree. If swimming outdoors is called wild swimming, I'd love to know what they'd label what crazy sh*t me and my brothers did when we were younger in the local rivers. It seems as if it's anything for free (i.e. not in a pool, or at a campsite) it's deemed 'Wild'. Just wait for climbing gyms to label a trip to Stanage as 'wild climbing'

Alcohol is implicated in about 50% of open water drownings in England IIRC (it's been a while since I dug in to it.). 

I think children who are reasonable or good swimmers in particular can be caught out by cold water effects rather than alcohol related bad decision making.  This is where simply saying "don't go in its dangerous" is self defeating and a better approach is needed.

I look back on a childhood of swimming down rivers and in reservoirs, then at Wintertree Sr's childhood of playing in bomb craters in East London and wonder if something hasn't been lost now children no longer have feral time.

I once crashed into a flight of locks on t'local cut, whilst I was manning the tiller on a narrowboat.

... It never occurred to me to abseil my way out of trouble, but thanks for the tip.

Wild cooking has caused a lot of damage in the past few years.

When growing up, every holiday we went to was somewhere around the Aegean, so swimming is something I have always done. I do find the attitude of the authorities here rather puzzling. Instead of pushing people to learn how to swim properly, they are to be dissuaded from getting into water. Wut!?

tell me about it. I work as a countryside ranger and had to extinguish a bbq with a fire extinguisher yesterday. The couple thought the NO FIRES OR BBQS sign only applied to 'down there' (the beach) and were nestled on some very dry grass, very close to some very dry gorse.  The large blackened rectangle underneath still didn't convince them they were doing any harm. 

Waste of money. Just smear yourself with lard instead.

I guess they have concluded its too hard to train them. Round here most of the "rivers" you can walk across rather than swim. Do occasionally hear alerts at Lee valley white water centre when you have people deciding to swim. In the lake it wouldnt be much to worry about since its shallow although there can be a reasonable current but there have been people deciding to jump in the courses including jumping from the bridges. That I would tend to rate as a tad risky since a)the course isnt that deep b)getting smacked by a paddle or kayak can hurt and c)swimming through the drops is rather unpleasant (having run out of talent on multiple occasions kayaking)

They should just start running this again if they really want to keep folks away...

https://tinyurl.com/d56k7dns (work safe)

With you on that, however I am currently staying in England where seemingly everything is either forbidden, discouraged or in danger of being banned. I have seen it as an excuse for denial of access - for everybody.

For as long as I can remember I have been told water is dangerous. That's it, just like crags are dangerous.  Only recently have I seen education and advice on managing the danger - rather than a blanket NO DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.  Really good news that cold water shock etc is being explained as well as how to get out of a rip. Mentioned in posts upstream on the RNLI campaigns.

Except that nobody has called it 'wild swimming' on this thread.

So . . .

. . . what...?

That scared me shitless when I was a kid.

I grew up near a military training ground. At primary/junior school, we were shown a film about the potential consequences of playing with stuff we found in the local woods. Which included kids getting their faces blown off, and other lovely scenes.

It didn't stop us picking up unexploded thunderflashes, and trying to set them off. And then chucking them in the bonfire when they didn't. Only to have them explode later, and spread said bonfire over the garden...

As a child, my dad used to take us to the local pool regularly. He taught my brother to swim and tried to teach me, but I wasn't interested. I never had arm bands so was confident in water, but just wanted to play (handstands, sitting on the bottom etc). My dad didn't push the issue, but did insist that I must learn to float on my back because it was essential if I ever fell into open water. I clearly remember him teaching me this, probably pre-school age, that in open water you need to get on your back and float. 

Im really pleased to see the messaging now being put out about floating keeping you alive. 

(I can now swim, was just late to learn!)

i.e. wild camping, wild birdwatching, and yes wild swimming, but I don't recall mentioning that someone had used that last phrase here. Sorry not to be clearer.

I thought this quite significant.

"Many landowners are worried about getting sued if an accident occurs. But an important legal precedent was set in a court of appeal case in 2001, in which the family of a drowned man were refused damages from the National Trust for failing to stop him swimming in one of their ponds because the potential danger was obvious."

Now if that also applies to climbing perhaps it might persuade some landowners that having people climb on their land isn't a recipe for litigation

when I was about 8 I was in a "gang" of lads (much more benign form of gang then, as bad as we got was robbing a few apples or carrots to chew)  one of whom had an elder brother who introduced us to "birdwatching", a view of the garden of nurses accommodation which could be seen from undergrowth in our local copse.  Fortunately we were too young fully to appreciate the benefits and attractions of this form of wildbird watching.  Pet rabbits etc and cycling and "wild" tree climbing were more interesting.

Have you seen the price of lard these days? 

In the old days, kids could look at Rolf "can you see what it is yet ?" Harris public safety videos.

What happened to public information films. I remember this one and also "Coughs and sneezes spread diseases" from the fifties. Could have done with that one over the last while...

What do we get instead? Ignoramus Tory ministers standing in front of indoor Union Jacks.

Also it was Thatcher who slashed the funding that paid for swimming lessons in schools. 

I live in a city with lots of ponds. A kid just drowned and so did the police officer who went to save him (supposedly they can't drop their weapons when they go in so they go in with a huge amount of weight on them). There was a campaign to drain all ponds in the city. The city is on an 8 mile long lake. Yet we don't teach kids to swim in school. 

It's scary how many kids (and parents for that matter) cannot swim.

Yes floating on your back seems to be the accepted message, although I wonder if it needs to be expanded a bit to cope with choppy water/waves, or if you're heading off rapidly downstream!

We’ve had two local drownings in the last couple of weeks. Desperately sad of course but some predictable ‘ban this madness’ on social media. Swimming is a very natural thing to do with caution/respect. My mum was a swimming teacher but still nervous when I started swimming outside. Those public information films did a job on our generations. ‘Meet Mike, swims like fish.’

+1 for the old public information films.They covered everything from calling the coastguard and the highway code to the country code.

At least people couldn't claim it was there 'human rights' to 'wild camp' and let their dog chase sheep while they huddled round a bonfire made of benches and gates.

They seem to have moved to Facebook... I got a video from UK Government today, exhorting me to wear a face mask when on public transport or in confined spaces. Apparently, covid is still with us...

Must have been issued by the Ministry of Mixed Messages...

I think it's the lack of swimming lessons more than public information films.

I pay for my daughter to get private individual lessons, I got scared after a local kid drowned. With Covid she'd missed a year of swim lessons and we pay $40 a lesson. This will get her up to speed and she'll join the cheaper group lessons in the fall, still not cheap. But many can't afford that. 

Very few schools do free swim lessons anymore. Maybe it was Thatcher but I was born in 1980 and did free school swim lessons until I left junior school which was 1991? Major was PM for that last year or so. 

Lots of public swimming pools closed too, a long time before covid. 51% of British kids aged 7-11 couldn't swim (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-25713326). 

Did you ever see Duck and Cover?  Very reassuring. Just get under the table.

That definitely scared the shit out of me when I was a kid

Not forgetting "clunk click, every trip". TBH the presenters were more of a danger than cold water, old fridges or busy roads.

Did he do a stranger danger one?

To be fair, Rolf wasn't remotely in the Jimmy Saville/ Harry Glitter league of perverts.

Did you see the farm safety film where the child goes under in the slurry pit? Once seen, forever burned on the memory. 

Rolf makes me shiver. When the Jimmy Saville thing was in the press, we had a "next disgraced celebrity bingo" comp. I plumped for Rolf, purely because he sang about two little boys. I won. 

Brrr. 

When I was a kid we had a Rolf greatest hits LP. It was actually quite good in a singalong sort of way. 'I'm Jake the Peg, little little little leg ....'

To be fair, I learned a lot about the Civil War when that was out.. excellent teacher put its popularity to good use.

Mostly but not always, things are popular because they are good. It makes it all the more saddening.

It would be a brave man who would organise "difficult fest", great sing along line up though. 

The Who, the Glitter band, Rolf,... 

As far as I know, the Glitter Band weren't associated with anything untoward, just Gadd. You could invite DLT onto the roster perhaps?

"Gary Glitter, he's a bad bad man, 

Ruining the reputation of the Glitter Band"

Luke Haines, Bad Reputation.

I think parents are often far too quick to blame the schools, with limited classroom time, a full curriculum to teach (plus key stage exams) they can only do so much. They are your kids and as such you need to take responsibility for some parts of their education yourself (as you have done by arranging private swimming lessons), and not expect schools to cover a full range of lifeskills alongside academic learning.

Totally agree though about closure of pools making swimming less accessible.

It would be good to see subsidised (free for low income families) beginner swimming lessons offered to all children through the summer holidays, so they can obtain basic swimming skills with minimal financial commitment from the parents and without impacting on the already limited classroom time.

That was Apaches.  A gang of kids playing on a farm killed off one by one, like Final Destination for rural schoolkids.  The big telly was wheeled in to the classroom to show it to the class when I was at primary school and that death in particular, the kid drowning in the slurry pit, gave me nightmares for months.

I watched it again not so long ago (it's on youtube) - as an adult it's Sharon screaming as she dies in the night that stays with you.  Jeez.

I have found it interesting to read the comments on social media relating to these rescues and deaths which have happened. The responses seem generally to be sympathetic in nature, not generally calling for swimming to be banned or people charged for the cost of their rescue. When you compare this to the responses in relation to MR call outs I find it quite an interesting contrast. Is it because more people could imagine themselves swimming than they could going up a mountain or rock face? 

.....Thanks for bringing all that back again....

Given that swimming pools are a thing and don't look likely to disappear any time soon, how would you like people to distinctly refer to the type of swimming they do? I can understand why people roll their eyes at "wild X", it could be seen as trying to suggest a greater degree of adventure than might actually be involved, in a Bear Grylls-esque style. But what on Earth is there to object to in the term "open water swimming"? Are you just a big fan of linguistic ambiguity?

I get your point, but as with most supposed cases of ambiguity the context is often sufficient. What I don't like is 'I was open water swimming in X Tarn', 'I was wild camping at the head of Glen X' etc. I'd never heard of open water swimming. I certainly am a fan of concision and understatement.

It's very much like the factioning in climbing (sport, trad, boulder, dws, yadda yadda) running (fell, road, trail, sky, ultra). It is a Marketing thing.

You simply must have a specific harness/shoes/rack/trunks/goggles for each discipline, even though the core activity remains the same.

It is bullshit designed to pick your pocket.

Ba Humbug. 

But it keeps the gear freaks happy and feeds the endless threads of 'the best shoe laces for flashing my next wall project' sort.

Ba Ba Humbug

I normally order my weekly shopping delivery online from supermarkets. This has allowed me to rebrand actually visiting a supermarket to buy bog-roll as "wildshopping". If i go to independent shops in a town or city, I call it "extreme wildshopping".

I hope to write an article on wildshopping for the Daily Mail & The Guardian soon...

I take your point in that respect, (and absolutely despise the term "wild camping", which seems to be code for shitting in layby), but there is a world of difference between swimming in open water and in a swimming pool.

I don't really want to speculate about the abilities of the people who have drowned in very benign lakes recently, but they may well have been fine in a swimming pool, but for whatever reason have got into trouble in an outside environment.

It is probably worth having a differentiator, like between trad and sport climbing, to highlight the difference.

Would sir like a black and white mint? 

I would also classify sitting in a busy pub as wild drinking. A beer garden as rural or perhaps suburban, depending on the environment. 

Real wild shopping is going to markets

Fair.  An activity can't really be 'wild' unless it's happening outdoors.  But it's an understandable mistake, a lot of people get confused between the 'wild' and 'street' disciplines of shopping.  (And of course a lot of the more hardcore shoppers practice both.)

I've already seen outdoor climbing on real rock described as 'wild climbing' btw.  Possibly even on here.

I'm currently sat in a field on a little walk from home. I could chip in and call it wild pedantry. Would this be wildly pedantic?

Or you could call it a nit pick picnic.

If I hadn't already eaten everything

A new label. In the news today:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/25/drunk-swimming-a-growing-da...

Ark hag gonia trunks incorporating an inbuilt nappy and hip flask in stores near you soon. 

'Don't dunk when drunk!' You saw it here first

Yeah, context certainly makes the extra wording unnecessary some of the time. Like when you're describing swimming in a particular place. But if you're, say, discussing your hobbies or listing them on a dating app, it's a lot more practical to say you're into "open water swimming" than to list a load of venues or to likely give the wrong impression by just saying "swimming". Maybe some people won't have heard of the specific term before but a few moments of thought will probably get them there and if it doesn't then Google surely will. Nobody on this thread seems to have done the thing you're saying you dislike anyway.

It's not though, is it. Pool swimming or open water swimming are fundamentally very different experiences. Which legitimately might well require different kit, like a wetsuit if you're not well hard.

As for climbing, there are very distinct boundaries between trad, sport and bouldering in terms of kit and skills required that would clearly still exist in a world without marketing. Which, for the record, I do agree would be a better world. I'm certainly not defending marketing. It is full of bullshit. I just contend that the bullshit is layered on top of genuine distinctions between these disciplines rather than underpinning the distinctions.

Indoor pools are horrible places for sure, but I’m not clear how a wetsuit makes them better…?

Open water swimming is a bit of a disappointment to marketeers - they just seem unable to convince people that they need a shitload of expensive gear. Whereas if I were to cycle on some gravel I’d definitely need a gravel bike.

Oh no! I use some gravelly cycling paths sometimes on my road bike!! I appear to have been doing it all wrong! Now, is that wild road biking I have been doing? Maybe the marketing people will come to hunt me down and make me buy a gravel bike for these sections!

Your best bet is to get some gravel shoes and just push through the gravelly bit. But you’ll need a massive gravel watch. 

You joke but actually I'm such a wuss about cold water that I've been in swimming pools where I would have quite liked a wetsuit!

Have you seen the price of wetsuits in a plethora of neoprene thicknesses and styles (all of which appear to be easily shredded by a toenail) aimed at swimmers and triathletes (probably the most marketed sport in the world).

You’re right, I’d forgotten about the triathletes. They love gear.  I’d been thinking more of the folk who just like swimming outdoors. 

Until fairly recently, most outdoor swimmers turned up in their cossie and and old towel in a carrier bag, maybe a swimming cap or woolly hat in winter and possibly a pair of cheap beach shoes or wetsuit socks if it was a rocky entry.

In recent years the amount of products aimed at outdoor swimmers has increased dramatically, dry robes, tow-floats, special holdalls to carry your wet kit, special goggles etc.  People love buying kit!

I paddle, swimming means failure.

Or as a very good friend once said "if you're not swimming, you're not trying"

I never swim indoors but almost never in what I would describe as "open water". It is usually in an appealing pool in a mountain burn or in the shallows of a lochan or off a deserted beach. Not sure what term I would use but "open water" seems inappropriate - a bit like lumping scrambling in with big wall climbing. Maybe "dipping" (it is usually of the "skinny" type anyway).

If I did that I might end up accidentally marrying a victim of marketing in a wetsuit towing a fluorescent red buoy. It might be more disastrous than marrying a boulderer.

Why not just say what you actually like doing?

A wetsuit and a tow float are both perfectly sensible things to have if they're the right tools for what you're doing.  You might as well describe a climber as a 'victim of marketing' for having cams.

So it sounds like what you're saying is that another category is needed. Call the marketers.

Sweets for sheeps. Like it, like it...

Emperor's new swim suit sir? A bargain at £100.

‘Outdoor having a splash’ is a useful category. Seems to cover people that like to get in but not exert themselves with much swimming. Where having a chat, cooling down and a bit of cake are key. Loads of those spots around you’d struggle to swim more than a few strokes 😁

Are people on a climbing forum really having a pop at other sports for 'liking gear'?

Have you never been to the Kendal Mountain Festival ? My observation is that you apparently need at least £500 of specialist outdoor gear to simply sit and watch a video.

After a disasterous weekend in Scotland, we are getting the prohibition message loud and clear this morning

Those stats could possibly include fishermen falling in the harbour when they return to their vessels after 10 hours in the pub.  Fishing is now the most dangerous occupation in the UK due to the demise of mining, and a substantial percentage of fishermen deaths are due to falling off the quay pissed, or sparking up some kind of cooking fire onboard if they manage to not fall off the quay pissed.

Had a great swim in the river at Crickhowell on Saturday aftercoming over from Llangorse via Mynydd Troed, Waun Fach, Pen Allt Mawr and Pen Cerrig-calch. A nice pool just downstream from the bridge. Wonderful place to swim. 

And a few weeks ago in a reservoir (not a household water source....former supply to a mill) above Glossop.

Had a few gawpers on the bridge at Crickhowell, but I think they were mostly checking out the women in the party in their bikinis.

I can understand advice not to swim in specific places with dangerous currents, or toxic algae blooms, but not as a general thing.

Got one in Aldi a while back for £24.99, including shoes. Not the greatest qulity, but good enough for any open water swimming I'm likely to do in winter. Though I did swim in Loch Lomond in just my skivvies a couple of years ago when the air temperature was minus 4. Didn't stay in long though!

In many cases you probably could.....

One had a big gate fall on him and one got spiked by a telescopic loader, I think. Can't remember what happened to the rest.

The film would certainly put paid to any notion of parkour round the farm. 

Sometimes I wonder how I survived…. Especially the riding on the hay trailer thing. 
 

Meanwhile, the Firth of Forth is rather warm right now. Very unusual

I have a Lidl wetsuit, purchased before my youngest child was born (she is now almost 14).  It has had hundreds and hundreds of uses, it’s been scraped over rocks, dumped wet in the car overnight, flung in the washing machine, dried in the sun - all the things you are told not to do with a wetsuit, and it’s still going strong.

Sure it’s not the best for doing an elegant crawl, but for the kind of rough outdoor swimming I do, it’s perfect.

The first lad fell off a moving trailer and went under the wheel.  The next one fell in the slurry pit and drowned.  The girl accidentally got a mouthful of paraquat, spat it out immediately but still died horribly during the night.  Then there was the lad squashed by a gate falling over, and the last one was playing on a parked tractor with no roll cage, accidentally kicked off the handbrake and rolled it down an embankment.  And in fine horror film tradition, one survivor.

And as if we weren't traumatised enough after that little lot as compulsory viewing for 8-10 year olds, there was "The Finishing Line" the same year.  That was the one with a school sports day being held on a live railway line.  Happy days.

Sadly there's plenty real life stories too, most too grim to recount. But folk still make mistakes, human optimism.

We were never ever allowed to forget that we were growing up in a danger zone... that's before factoring in the mile of notorious river running past us.  When older however the river was the reason school holidays were never boring.

1) Learn to swim young man, learn to swim

2)Then learn to cast a fly and buy a kayak.

A cheap beach one may well be fine for what you are doing, but a decent swimming one makes a noticible difference with any distance. A bit like if you cycle only using a mountain bike - you might be missing out on the benefits of a road bike! 

I'm a Royal Life Saving Society Trainer Assessor, I run pool and open water lifeguard courses; there is quite a big difference between swimming in a heated, filtered and chlorinated pool, and swimming outdoors.

Roughly a third of all drowning casualties have drugs or alcohol in their systems. Enough for the RLSS to promote a 'Don't drink and drown' campaign every year.

Nearly half (46%) had no intention of ever being in the water.

80% of casualties are male.

23% are aged between 18 and 30.

I do agree there is a vast amount of kit available to open water swimmer that wasn't about a few years ago, however, once you've tried a dry robe to get changed when it's cold and windy, you'll only keep your towel to stand on.

The term "wild swimming" wholly gets on my wick like.

Totally agree with both of the above points.

Was given a dry robe as a Xmas present a few years back and it makes the whole getting warm and dry business so much quicker and easier.  I don’t stand on my towel though - I keep a square of carpet in the boot of my car for that, or if I’ve got neoprene to wiggle out of I stand inside a big garden trug so everything that comes off, goes directly into the container, doesn’t get any additional sand, mud, grit etc on it, and I don’t leave anything lying around.  

The term “wild swimming” makes me shudder.

You prompted me to look at the national water safety stats. 

Perhaps explains why, fortunately, so few kids under 15 drown. 

Year on year this is very striking (close to 90% in 2018). Not sure that prioritising boys for school swimming lessons is the the way forward though. 

To be honest what struck me was that there are very few cases of under 16's and over 80's but otherwise, over the last few years the other age groups (when broken down into 5 year groups) were pretty similar. Men don't seem to be any more cautious/sensible around water in their 50's than their 20's

Whilst I join you in shuddering, here is a painful reminder that climbers got there first.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/books/wild_bouldering_in_yorkshire-540

Also factor into that that the outdoor swimming community has a disproportionally high number of female participants (especially in the 40+ age category).

#middleagedwomendontdrown

I don't think that is limited to outdoor swimming. I remember reading that (statistically at least) one of the best ways to improve safety when ski touring was to make sure there was at least one female in your group. 

16 and under are more likely to be targeted by campaigns whilst at school, Drowning prevention week for example. They are also more likely to be supervised by a parent/adult/guardian whilst out near bodies of open water.

By and large, it tends to be males who are more likely to show off. Prioritising lads swimming lessons probably won't make that much of a difference to be honest - all children are *supposed* to be able to swim 25m (in a pool) by the time they leave year 4, its part of the national curriculum.

The first link in the drowning chain is lack of education. A lot of people just aren't aware of cold water shock, it's dangers, and how to mitigate the risk. For all those wetsuit bashers - you acclimatise quicker without a wetsuit, it might just be a very short time you're in - below 10 degrees Celsius feels like the water is burning it's that cold.

The issue of short term/long term memory that many teachers suffer from

Would be interesting to see the number of fathers in the stats. 

Makes sense to me 

Again no argument from me, slightly off topic, but a few years ago a boy at a neigbouring school broke an ankle jumping off a bridge. At the time I had to do an assembly saying don't do it. I wasn't allowed to do one  saying they would have been OK if the water had been 8 feet rather than 8 inches deep. 

, 

My mum made one for us when I was a kid, some time before before 1970. Towelling tube with a gathered head hole. Made getting in and out of swimming clothes so much easier and less prone to exposure... It had arm slots, rather than sleeves.

She didn't trademark it as a DryRobe®, though...

I was similarly sceptical about the Dryrobe until I was given one, thinking it might be a posh version of a towelling robe.  

It’s heavy duty windproof fabric, thick pile lining and massive, so you can pull your arms inside to change.  Makes a massive difference to comfort when emerging from the water on a windswept Orkney beach in the winter.  Mine is at least five years old now and I haven’t managed to seize the zipper or mangle it in any other way yet.  

Pile/pertex is/was quite popular with surf and other water sports types; DryRobe sounds like an extension of that approach...

We only used mum's creation on summer holidays...

An Australian friend explained that at home they were all taught front crawl as the default stroke because it would enable you to swim sideways out of a rip tide, whereas breaststroke, the British default, will just keep your head above water as you are swept out to sea.

The emphasis on staying afloat is a bottom line of course but educationally it's poor. If we had wings surely an education system would want pupils to be able to do more than flap up to the lowest branch of a tree. Our approach to swimming is typical of the rest of British education unfortunately. 

Why?

I think drowning has more to do with poor judgement than poor swimming technique. Hence the m/f ratio. Australians might be better swimmer but a much higher (more than double?) proportion drown. Our 2x200m lads didn't do too badly at front crawl. 

We were taught crawl at school.

The important thing with escaping a rip is to swim sideways out of the rip, rather than exhaust yourself trying to fight against it. Once out of the rip, you can swim back to shore. I'm not sure the stroke you use makes that much difference.

I presume because it is a faster, stronger stroke. I would see crawl as my "sprint" stroke and breaststroke as my "endurance"stroke (not that I particularly sprint or have that much endurance when swimming compared to real swimmers, but it's all relative!)

I’m not sure that is always the accepted way, there might be an alongshore current as well.  An alternative strategy is float and wait until you circulate back in to the surf zone.  The choice/mixture dependent on circumstances. 

You're not Peter Rabbit are you?

Open water swimming has been used as a differentiator in competitive swimming for decades.

that would make me a wererabbit