Preview to Stage 5

Today four swimmers will tackle the most difficult stage, the 20 mile swim from the Bear Mountain Bridge to the Tappan Zee Bridge. They are:
Grace van der Byl from Solana Beach, CA
Rondi Davies from New York, NY
David Barra from High Falls, NY
Eli Falcon from Brooklyn, NY

This will be Eli and Davids second stage, and Grace and Rondi’s fifth. The swim begins with a narrow windy passage near Stony Point and then opens up into the widest section of the Hudson, Havestraw Bay. Due to the length of the swim, swimmers will start in a flooding tide. And due to the wideness of the river, the current assist will be minimal. Other challenges include significantly hotter water from discharge at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, chop from wind and boat traffic, and bountiful sail boats as this is a summer yachting destination for New Yorkers.

The weather forecast looks good. There will be light winds from the southwest all day and temps are expected to reach 92˚F, so it will be a hot day for everyone out there.

Yesterday was a much needed day off. It was actually built into the schedule as a bad weather delay day so we didn’t need to shift all the stages a day ahead if we had a delay early in the event.

Stage 5