The Big Swim - Wheeler Imaging

STANDING AT LYFORD’S STONE TOWER IN TIBURON AND LOOKING OVER RACCOON STRAIT TOWARD ANGEL ISLAND,
most of us could scarcely imagine swimming that distance. The tides run swift through the strait and the current can be unpredictable. At 150 feet, it is one of the deepest channels inside the Gate, with water in the mid-50-degree range much of the year.
Yet to some this swim — known as the RCP Tiburon Mile — not only is possible, but has become an annual challenge that beckons
to both local and far-flung participants, including some of the fastest swimmers in the world.
The distance is one nautical mile, from the start on the beach in Ayala Cove at Angel Island to the finish line in Tiburon
near Sam’s Cafe. The water temperature is the warmest it will get all year — a balmy 63 to 64 degrees on a mild autumn day
— and the waves and chop are minimal due to the stabilizing presence of Angel Island. A flotilla of volunteer kayakers and
paddleboarders shadows the racers across the channel, ready to swoop in if help is needed. The fastest swimmers make it over
in about 20 minutes, while the average time is about 40 minutes. Along with triathlons and marathons, open-water swimming
has expanded in popularity over the last decade; last year more than 800 participated in the Tiburon Mile. But this race was
not the first to traverse Raccoon Strait.
68 S E PT E M B E R 2 0 1 3 M A R I N
The Tiburon Mile is a
favorite with local athletes
and swimmers from
around the world.
THE
BIG
SWIM
BY RICHARD
WHEELER
PHOTOS BY
IAN THURSTON
M A R I N S E PT E M B E R 2 0 1 3 69
T
August 30, 1952. Starting
from the beach at Ayala Cove at 4 p.m., 27 swimmers, all without wet suits, plunged into the
water. They landed somewhere on the rocky
shore below the present-day location of the
Caprice restaurant, a race of five-eighths of a mile. “Big Bill”
McIvor, a young Stanford medical student at the time, won that
contest in 13 minutes and 27 seconds. The Dolphin Club in San
Francisco, organizer of the race, kept it going every year until
1966, when increasing boat traffic made it too perilous.
Almost 50 years after McIvor’s swim, on a large deck of
a house up on the bluff above Lyford’s Tower not far from
where McIvor came ashore that day, former U.S. National
Swim Team member Robert Placak was celebrating his 40th
birthday in the spring of 1999 with a gathering of friends. At
one point during the evening his wife, Graciela, stood and
presented him with a gift — a hand-drawn poster she’d made
featuring a shark-with-halo logo (still used today) — proclaiming, in front of his friends and relatives, the first annual
Tiburon Inter-Island Swim (as it was initially called). Placak
accepted the challenge to create a world-class event that
would attract the best open-water swimmers in the world,
raise money for charity and be a great community event.
Placak, an insurance executive, teamed up with Robin
Schaeffer, the operations manager at his company, to
H AT H A PPEN ED ON
The strategy is simple: go out fast, swim as
hard as you can and hope you have picked the
right line to the yacht club across the strait.
70 S E PT E M B E R 2 0 1 3 M A R I N
obtain the appropriate permits and approvals from town officials, the police department, the Coast Guard, Angel Island
State Park, the Corinthian Yacht Club and some of the nearby
homeowners. One by one Placak and Schaeffer managed to
secure the go-aheads and the race was on.
Lining up the competitive swimmers was the next challenge. Offering a $2,500 prize (raised to $10,000 the next year)
to the first male and female finishers — a unique perk for an
open-water race — clearly helped achieve this goal. Bringing
in Olympic gold medalist Brooke Bennett also helped. She
won the first four of five events and put the Tiburon Mile on
the radar of elite swimmers around the world. More came to
participate each following year.
Elite swimmers, as those who compete in global competitions are called, see this race as a sprint. The strategy is
simple: go out fast, swim as hard as you can and hope you
have picked the right line to the yacht club across the strait.
Some say it is a matter of luck on that last point, as the currents and wind chop are never entirely predictable. Some
choose the most direct line, while others choose to arc the
route a bit to ride the current, which was ebbing in last year’s
race, into the harbor first. But since racers can’t judge the
current while they are swimming in it, most go by what their
gut tells them. If you change your line out there and move to
the outside or the inside of the pack, it may help you win, or
it may cost you the win. Others feel their chances are best
staying in the pack a few strokes behind the leaders. Their
strategy is to make their move at the very end as they scram- in the water shouting directions through his megaphone:
ble up the beach to the finish line. Last year, freestyle skiing “Elites, you gotta get back out of the water, we gotta see those
Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley called the race for toes.” In the front line, the elites wear white and multicoltelevision audiences, while John Naber and Rowdy Gaines, ored caps; they’ll start first. Behind them are the “naked”
both Olympic swimming gold medalists, broadcasted from a swimmers, those without wet suits, in red caps, and finally
those wearing wet suits, in green caps. Aboard the pilot boat
command post on the deck at the Waters Edge Hotel.
stationed about 50 yards off the beach, Mark
As the elites jockey for position in the
Leonard, vice commodore of the Corinthian
lead pack and try to earn that $10,000 prize,
This year’s race — the
Yacht Club, fires the starting gun.
stretched out behind them are some 600
14th edition — takes
The start is not for the faint of heart.
to 700 swimmers who do this for the thrill
place September 29.
Hitting the cold water brings a sharp jolt to
and the challenge or to obtain the bragging
Registration fees are $139
the system, whether you are in a wet suit or
rights that come with just making it across.
before September 13 and
not. Racers fight to make it out of the twist
For some it is a rite of passage shared among
$179 after. The deadline to
of arms and legs as swimmers pile into the
generations of family — fathers, sons, mothregister is September 25.
water and set out for the open water and the
ers, daughters and grandmothers swimming
Call 415.306.0716 or visit
2,000-yard swim (last year New Zealander
together. High school and college teams come
rcptiburonmile.com for
Kane Radford finished first among the men
out to hone their skills and challenge their
more information. Proceeds
with a time of 21:43; Melissa Gorman, from
rivals in good-natured competition.
benefit Special Olympics
Australia, took the women’s crown three
In the predawn darkness of race day,
and Hospice by the Bay.
seconds later). Over the next 40 minutes,
swimmers arrive, slowly at first, out of the
darkness carrying their gear. As morning light envelops the one after another, the entire field of racers swims through
scene, they come in a flood. Piles of belongings occupy every the yacht harbor entrance, around the docks at Sam’s, and
nook along the wooden deck where the Angel Island Ferry toward the small beach by the Corinthian Yacht Club. On
departs. In just 10 minutes they are on the island and headed wobbly legs they emerge, up out of the water and across the
electronic timing mat beneath the finish gate. Friends, relato the start on the beach at Ayala Cove.
As the swimmers bunch up along the beach, John Loberg, tives and other spectators line the deck at Sam’s and all along
the head starter, in red shirt and red cap, stands calf deep the seawall behind the finish gate to cheer them in. m
Opener, top to bottom:
Racers framed by
the Golden Gate;
Kan Radford of New
Zealand, 2012 elite
male winner. This
spread from far left:
(l to r) Ridge Grimsey,
Bob Placak, John
Naber, Rowdy Gaines
and Codie Grimsey;
the race is on; the view
at the waterfront.
M A R I N S E PT E M B E R 2 0 1 3 71