PoolTalk

First-time pool owner on the learning curve

A blogger named Jayne writes that she and her husband had a lot to learn about pools when they bought a house that happened to have one. (Great photo, too.) They were smart enough to have an expert from a local pool store show them the ropes:

Well, Gary arrived on Friday morning, and boy, what we didn't know! We'd been playing around with the knobs and valves, but found out that we fully had no water going through the clorinator (gee, is that a problem?) and that when we back wash we were also supposed to be rinsing else it all just goes back into the pool. Umm... oh. Within three days the water is so much cleaner and clearer, it's amazing. Now, we feel like informed pool owners!

Here are some of our stories of pool maintenance. We are on our third summer.

Good day for poolside reading

A great day to be sitting by the pool reading a book by Art Shay or anyone else with generous space devoted to photography.

Milton Nelms to talk in NZ

Through Saturday in Wellington:

Leading coaches from Australia and United States will provide the keynote seminars for the NZ Swim Coaches and Teachers Conference including former Kiwi John Coutts, who heads the famous Carlile Swim School in Sydney, Rob McKay from Florida where he and his wife have developed the renown Lifestyle Swim School and Milton Nelms, who has a global reputation on swim technique.

Many of New Zealand’s leading coaches and teachers will also present to the conference including National High Performance Director of Coaching Jan Cameron, National High Performance Programme Director Clive Rushton and several national coaches and teachers.

Coutts is well known as former New Zealand Olympian, commonwealth Games medalist and also conqueror of Cook Strait who has guided the Carlile Swimming facility in to the most profitable swim centre in Australia.

McKay and his wife Kathy have prospered with a gentle, child-centered curriculum for teaching that has won favour around the world.

Nelms has developed unique theories on athlete development and human movement, lecturing in over 20 countries with his clients including coaches and elite athletes in a variety of sports, medical and health professionals, educators and organisations.

Can you buy enough batteries?

Anyone with a pool wants more and better pool toys and each season there are new temptations in the stores. (When did the big sponge  noodle fad start?) Is this backyard pool toy from Hammacher-Schlemmer cool? Not according to Gotta Get One by Michael Marcus, which spells out exactly how expensive (very) it is to supply all the battery power:

It may seem cool to be able to silently swoop and spiral around your backyard pool, but you better own an oil well -- or at least a battery factory -- if you're going to get one.

You can spend more money running it for an hour, than you spend to buy it.

Hammacher says it uses 24 D cells (with no built-in charger); and a set of batteries will provide just a 15 minute cruise.

Alkaline D cells cost about a buck-fifty each. A full boatload will cost $36. That works out to $144 for an hour, plus sales tax.

If you are still interested, it is the Excalibur motorized pool lounge, shown for $149.95.

One-on-one lessons for a child

This pool owner in Florida realized that the backyard pool was a great place for formal swim lessons. The instructor came to the child (from The Orlando Sentinel):

Finally, I engaged the services of the spritely Miss M, a young instructor at one of the area Y's.  She was willing to come to our backyard pool once a week on an indefinite schedule to teach Chairman how to swim.  And the results have been fabulous.

In just a few lessons, Chairman has gone from rigid fear to eagerness and budding ability.  She greets Miss M with a smile and is making solid progress in kicking, paddling, bubble-blowing, floating, etc.  I mill about the pool area and get an idea of what she's learning.  Then she insists that we "practice" during the week to be ready for the next lesson.

I understand the "final exam" is likely to consist of Chairman going in the deep end fully clothed and managing to get herself out safely. Maybe even by the end of the summer.

Miss M tells me that some kids seem to thrive in the group lessons (which I did, when I was a youngster) and others really do better one-on-one at first.  Either way works fine; the important thing is to get them swimming.

1997 Ford in Florida pool

Another car in another backyard pool. Does this happen more often in Florida, or does it just seem that way? The Miami Herald has a photo.

update Click for a photo of the car being removed.

A Sun-Sentinel report captures the moment:

Jennette Baksh, 21, of Cooper City, was not injured in the 9:40 a.m. crash that started in the northbound lanes of Nob Hill Road, said Lt. Bill Bamford, police spokesman.

Baksh told police she hit a bump in the road and lost control of her red 1997 Ford Aspire. The car went off the road, through a fence, then plunged into the pool at 1511 West Oak Knoll Circle.

No one was home, but Baksh was able to disentangle herself from the car and escape, then call for help.

New training current in a pool

update

Bob Lauter, company president, quoted in the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly:

A more basic version of the product has been available for six years, but the entrepreneur who developed it in his garage seldom sold more than 150 of the units annually because he was unable to afford a marketing budget. And he was still assembling the product with parts purchased from a building supply retailer.

Master Spas bought his company to obtain the patent for it, then “re-engineered it for some aesthetics and safety and things like that,” Lauter said.

“We had some custom parts made and did some things that would give it a much more finished look, but the function of it was the same.”

original post

An indiana company has started to market a machine that propels a current in any pool, to help with training. From the ExerSwim news release:

ExerSwim uses a patented propulsion system that uses a unique propeller design to create a wide, deep current flowing in only one direction for a smoother, more effective swimming experience without the short lap-and-turn of conventional pool swimming. The speed is fully adjustable from simple to strenuous by turning the dial to a "swim number," ranging from 0 to 60; and ExerSwim's versatility promotes a variety of fitness regimens from traditional swimming, jogging or walking in place, or light hydra-therapy exercise.

The portability of the ExerSwim poolside generator is designed specifically to travel, install, and store in minutes with minimal space requirements; the CrossTrainer 24 and ProTrainer 36 models measure approximately three-feet high by two-feet wide

Reading test strips

Environmental Test Systems of Elkhart, Ind., is the subject of this article in The Indianapolis Star about a digital reader for pool test strips: "The Aquachek TruTest Digital Test Strip Reader. Consumers no longer have to eyeball test strips and guess whether the chemical levels in their pools are appropriate. With this invention, they simply dip a test strip into the pool or hot tub and then slide the strip into the digital reader. Within 15 seconds, the device transfers the colors on the test strip into a mathematical equation, analyzes the equation, and presents the consumer with a specific number representing the water sample's chemical content in three areas: free chlorine/bromine, pH and total alkalinity."

5 meet records, all the gold medals

A Malaysian swimmer, 10-year-old Chin Hwang, swept his national meet for his age group and set five new meet record while he did it. He brougth home the gold in every category. Now he has his eye on Ian Thorpe, according to this New Strait Times report:

"Chin Hwang set a new time of 29.19s to also emerge the only under-10 swimmer to dip below 30 seconds in the 50m freestyle, although he had stated that his favourite is the butterfly, in which he set meet records over 50m, 100m and 200m.

Selangor’s Chin Hwang rewrote Bego’s 200m freestyle mark with a new time of 2:19.97s, leaving second-placed Roydon Ong of Sarawak almost 10 seconds behind.

Currently coached by Mark Chua, Chin Hwang said he harbours dreams of one day emulating his idol Ian Thorpe.
"I’ve been swimming for six years now and this is the best I have achieved. I am happy with this performance and I hope I’ll be on my way to becoming a top swimmer like Ian Thorpe," said Chin Hwang."

Opening the backyard pool

The very special stick makes it easy to release the straps from the screws in the pool deck. One quick flip of the wrist is all it takes. The pool cover is off, and today the pool team arrived to get the pump going.