During the five mile non-timed swim are you allowed to drink and eat? No. Though in the real world you have a camel back on just about everywhere
Dick Couch mentioned in his book the Navy now requires all trainees to wear wet suits when the water in less than 70 degrees. They did this after several guys suffered complications from hypothermia after completing the swim. Was this true with your class? Yes--you earned an ill fitting 3/4 wetsuit after swimming surf passage in week two
How many boats/instructors are in the water during the swim to monitor the trainees? Don't really remeber--always at least two boats and crews plus some kayaks
How do they differentiate between someone suffering from hypothermia and someone who is just tired and ready to quit? The tired quitter wants to get out of the water, the hype victim wants to keep swimming and is unresponsive to the swim buddy
If you do suffer from hypothermia are you allowed to redo the swim or washed out of the class? Yes, you are re-warmed and have a chance to redo it. When I was going through chronic hyp-outs was a reason for dismissal
Everyone has a swim buddy:
How are you assigned? Correct!
How many "practice" swims do trainees do a week/phase before they are tested? Every swim, every four mile run and every obstacle course is a test
What do you do if your swim buddy quits during a swim? The quitter will be taken into a boat. the remaining person will be placed with the next swim pair. If the quitter swims to shore, the non-quitter goes with him and fails the test
Do swim buddies always swim side by side? Yes--you swim side stroke facing each other. It is really boring and burned horribly into my mind
How close to you have to be to your swim buddy?You have to be able to touch
How do you keep track of your swim buddy in the dark? If you have to you hold on Underwater? You are tied together with a buddy line
Last, how did you keep your conditioning up for swimming while in Iraq and Afgan? We went to the municiple pool.
:)
There was no swimming so no need to stay in shape for it