They call it rough
water for a reason

A request for volunteers to help out at this year's Waikiki Roughwater Swim just showed up in my e-mail, but I have to admit, last year's contest left me with some apprehension.

That's because last year's event and the mass-rescue drill it turned into still haunts me as a classic near-disaster.

For those who might ask what a boating journalist knows about rescues, in another life I was a fire department captain who spent a 28-year career planning for and participating in rescue scenarios of all kinds.

In fact, I supervised the creation of the first overall disaster response plan for the city of Newport Beach, Calif., but I digress.

For those who may not remember, last year's 34th annual Roughwater Swim began, as usual, at San Souci Beach, where approximately 1,000 swimmers of varying abilities dived into the water and headed west for the beach at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

Along the 2-mile offshore course, there were numerous "safety patrol" volunteers on paddleboards, kayaks and in small boats who were ready to assist swimmers who needed help of any kind.

The basic plan was for those on the boards and kayaks to make the first contact with a potential victim, ascertain the problem, and then wave for a boat pickup, if needed.

But before many swimmers had even made it out to the buoy marking the first 740-yard leg, it was apparent that, contrary to the wind and waves, there was a strong current pushing them toward Diamond Head -- away from the finish line.

Little by little, those of us in boats could see that only the strongest swimmers were able to make headway against the current, while the weakest were actually moving backward. And, oddly, they wouldn't believe us when we told them so.

Then, as they tired, we began to get a few requests from swimmers to be pulled out, and as the minutes passed, the numbers of requests grew.

Soon the volunteer boats couldn't keep up with the demand and there were clusters of swimmers schooling around the marker buoys waiting to be picked up.

When two exhausted safety patrol kayakers asked to be brought aboard our boat, it became obvious the situation had gotten out of hand. We were rescuing rescuers along with the swimmers.

Fortunately, before things got much worse, the Coast Guard and the Honolulu Fire Department and Life Guards responded to what had become a full-fledged mass-casualty exercise.

Of the nearly 1,000 swimmers who had started the race, only 361 made it across the finish line. The only positive aspect was that there were no fatalities.

Fire officials later described the situation as "total chaos" and noted that the department had never made more rescues in one day. Those observations clearly showed that race officials had lost control and had a number of safety issues to address.

Hopefully, by evaluating the abilities of the volunteers, the contestants and the course conditions more closely prior to the start, those officials will have better control of this year's race.

The Roughwater Swim is scheduled for September 5 and an incoming tide is predicted. That should create less adverse currents, but until I'm told other changes have been made, I'll still be a bit apprehensive.