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Channelling The Right Sound: The ACME Whistle English Channel Challenge
Completing the Channel swim is one of the biggest challenges a swimmer can face, and for some, a life-long dream. The Channel stretches out, at its shortest, 21 miles between England and France yet the path the swimmers take can increase in distance depending on the current.
As one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, the Channel provides many challenges for those attempting the swim. And last week, a team took on the challenge in order to answer one question: Which ACME Whistle is the best or the English Channel Swim?
With many boats and ferries crossing the Channel as well as the swimmers, it’s important for any team to have a clear way of communicating with the swimmers. Not only keeping them safe, but allowing for the swimmers to keep to a rhythm until instructed to stop.
The swimmers’ ears were put under scrutiny to find the best methods and tools for the swimmer and support boat to communicate with during the challenge.
‘R’n’R’ endurance sports coach, Ryan Bowd, who led the team, states “effective communication between the athletes and support can cut hours off the challenge, or even mean the difference between completing the channel swim or not!”
The team, led by ‘R’n’R’ endurance sports coach Ryan Bowd and Red Top channel swimming coach Tim Denyer, undertook two back to back challenges, one with solo athlete, Robbie MacNab, followed by a relay of 4 swimmers from the UK and France. Across the two-day window, Ryan, Tim and the support crew tested out a variety of whistles and techniques.
The three whistles the team tested all came from the experts here at ACME Whistles.
- The ACME Tornado T2000:, the ultra-high pitch, very loud, a big whistle in every sense
- The ACME Slimline Tornado 636; with a slimline, small and flat design, loud and high pitched that packs a punch.
- The ACME Survival Whistle 649; with a discordant note for attention grabbing and a low blow rate to achieve a significant output.
Here at ACME, we were intrigued to see the thoughts of the team on the Channel as to which whistle would be more effective, as it is not always the loudest that comes out on top.
Although the three whistles tested are all maritime whistles, they can vary between how hard they blow, volume, pitch and tone.
The challenge was the perfect way to celebrate our 150th anniversary of inventing and innovating our whistle technology.
After a long 2 days of testing, the team gathered their thoughts and came to an interesting conclusion.
Endurance Coach, Ryan Bowd, claims that the ACME Tornado T2000 created a clear and strong signal to swimmer Robbie and the relay team. Bowd claims “the strength of the sound sent a clear, unambiguous message to the athletes in the water that easily carried over the noises from the boat, water and ambient chatter”.
Although, Bowd was equally impressed with the other whistles tested from our maritime range. “The other whistles were just as effective, however it was the Tornado that inspired the most confidence and conviction, and if the weather turned for the worst that’s what I’d want in my hand to help guide my athlete”.
After successfully completing the challenge in 14 hours and 46 minutes swimmer, Robbie MacNab, found that using the whistles made communication with the coaches much easier. MacNab added “with the whistle, you’re able to tune out any other noise as you know that messages are only directed your way if there’s a clear whistle to get my attention”.
Allowing the swimmer to focus on the task at hand is important in order for them to complete the challenge, and using the whistle avoids miscommunication and unnecessary stops. Red Top’s Tim Denyer adds “during the swim, the whistle should only be used sparingly at key points on the journey”. This keeps the swimmer safe whilst allowing them to achieve the best time possible.
Overall, the ACME Tornado T2000 pipped the other whistles to the post due to its clear and strong sound, which could be heard by the swimmer over the sound of everything else. Although, the team found that all of the ACME whistles tested would be effective for that task at hand.
More importantly, this challenge saw just how crucial whistles are for communication. Whistles should be used when attempting a challenge of this size to ensure safety whilst creating the best environment for the team to reach success.