Investigation of Diana Nyad Cuba-Florida Swim Timeline

evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
edited January 2016 in General Discussion
This discussion was created from comments split from: 110 miles, 53 hours: Questions for Diana Nyad.
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  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
    edited December 2015

    This is a review of the official documents of the event. I invested a substantial amount of time to the project and hope that you will find it of interest. Obviously much more investigative work can be done, but this analysis may be a good starting point.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ziybs0hhme93yh/Timeline Complete R1.1 2015 12 25 S R modified.pdf?dl=0

    JenAevmosuziedodsgregocIronMikeKatieBunDanSimonelliphodgeszohoLouise
  • HOW in heaven's name do you find time to do this???
    Wowee bazoweee.
    Bedtime reading!!
    Thank you

  • paulmpaulm Senior Member
    edited December 2015

    Thanks Anthony, Appreciate all your work. I will read over the coming few days.

    A couple of questions
    1) Do we have a copy of the hand written observer notes or just the typed ones supplies a while after the swim
    2) From memory the actual tracker for the swim was manually inputted on the screen people were watching and not actual live spot or similar tracking (as the spot was too expensive )- Is this correct/if not do you know where the course people were watching came from ?

  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
    edited December 2015

    @Niek, Sorry, I cannot comment on any videos or photos. Except for the three items mentioned in the concluding remarks, only the documents at the links listed in the Opening were evaluated. I did not review any other items.

    @paulm, Sorry, I did not see the hand written observer notes, so I cannot comment on them. Nor do I have an answer for you regarding spot or any other tracking device. Neither subject was addressed in the documents reviewed.

    @suziedods, Don’t be too overwhelmed. The Opening is only 2 pages. The Timeline 18. And the Concluding Comments 4. The rest of the document is the observer reports – first part not sorted and second part sorted chronologically.

    JenA
  • gregocgregoc Charter Member

    Niek said:

    Don't know who wrote down those coordinates but they had a navigator on the water who used land miles instead of sea miles for the distances. Sorry but that's a no go in my book.

    @Niek, here in the USA marathon swims tend to use statute miles instead of nautical miles. Personally I think all marathon swims should be measured in kilometers.

    JenA
  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
    edited December 2015

    The navigator notes, even though hand written, appear to be transcribed. They did not, in my opinion, have the worn look of paper that was used during a swim.

    To be fair to the navigator, it may be that he was converting the distances during the event for other people on the boat.

    Something that may deserve more of your attention is that the event ended hours sooner than all four navigator predictions made during the event. And, I think it is fair to say, that the last meaningful entry by the navigator was at Hour 41 (with nearly 12 hours remaining).

    IronMike
  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    edited January 2016

    Nice work @AnthonyMcCarley. I know you state you only looked at the official DN documents, and I appreciate that.

    Looking back at what I wrote while it was happening, I lost total and complete faith when she (supposedly) did that entire 7+ hours the second night w/o food or drink. Then the crew changed the website to add a feeding stop on the middle of the night. If I recall, I think that was in the mid-30 hour range. Complete and absolute BS in my book.

    Again, great work. Thanks for this.

    rosemarymintAnthonyMcCarley

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • JenAJenA Charter Member

    @Niek said:
    Don't know who wrote down those coordinates but they had a navigator on the water who used land miles instead of sea miles for the distances. Sorry but that's a no go in my book.

    On page 74 (the combined observer log) it says: "She insists on using statute miles verses nautical miles.."

  • JenAJenA Charter Member

    @Niek said:
    A navigator navigates with and plots his course on nautical charts where the units used are nmi.
    So a real navigator would have told her [...]

    Or, they were just trying to be supportive and accommodate her request. :)

  • danswimsdanswims Portland, ORMember
    edited January 2016

    JenA said:
    Or, they were just trying to be supportive and accommodate her request. :)

    And since distance measurements are mathematically interchangeable what does it matter if it's reported in statutory miles, nautical miles, kilometers or parsecs (5.83340272e-12 parsecs from Cuba to Key West by the way) as long as the unit of measurement is clearly stated? With the multiple major irregularities that exist this seems trivial.

    david_barraevmo
  • Leonard_JansenLeonard_Jansen Charter Member

    Just a thought/conjecture: Since the mysterious 4+ mph current plays such a large role in the narrative of this opera, trying to find out if it did actually happen seems critical, I wonder if current information is something that the Coast Guard in that area keeps tabs on... The reason I say this is given the fact that there are people who try to float from Cuba to Florida, knowing the daily currents would seem necessary to being able to find these people and rescue them. Thoughts?

    -LBJ

    “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde

  • rosemarymintrosemarymint Charleston, SCCharter Member
    edited January 2016

    @Leonard_Jansen NOAA generally is the one that keeps the current data in that area. The coast guard would simply be using whatever was provided and they won't necessarily know the ins and outs of the data collection. You may want to try reaching out to someone with the National Ocean Service or even a marine forecaster with the NWS in Miami to see if they can send you in the right direction. They're generally very helpful and friendly people, happy that someone is paying attention to their work :-). NOAA does have satellite data records, but I don't know how fine the data are (would it accurately reflect an eddy that small in such a short time-frame? I don't know.) I also can't even begin to tell you where those records would be kept.

    ETA: NOAA CO-OPs (Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services) has current gauges in the Keys, but they most definitely do not have anything out in international waters. Other than satellite data, I don't know if there is a data set that would have the answer. Scientists often will rely on boats for information and they generally will trust whatever a mariner tells them because they have no reason to think otherwise. An important question to ask is whether such a current can form in that area and if there is any probability for such formation.

    That said, I've resigned myself to recognition that there are a lot of things that happened on the swim that can't be independently verified with >95% accuracy and I'm OK with simply using an "assisted" label as it clearly was not an unassisted swim. We know she got in the water in Havana, and she got out of the water in the Keys. Precisely what happened on the journey may never be fully known. It's sad, really. A swim of that profile and caliber, you'd think they'd have done everything to make bloody sure there were no questions by her peers.

    JenADanSimonelliIronMike
  • JenAJenA Charter Member
    edited January 2016

    I extracted data from the Observer reports and DN's GPS data in Excel, and made some pictures with Tableau. (I didn't include the navigator's data -- anyone feel like digitally transcribing his handwriting and sending it to me?).

    Here are the GPS coordinates, as provided by Janet Hinkle (orange), Roger McVeigh (green), and (apparently) DN's two SPOT devices (blue).

    Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 6.02.17 AM


    Note the significant drop-off in GPS logging over time. This image has DN's data removed.

    Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 6.17.00 AM


    This is a zoom-in of the finish. Note that DN's (apparently) two SPOT devices stopped recording for 1 hour and 15 minutes the morning before she finished. That single green point? It comes from Roger McVeigh, as he was off duty as an observer:

    "Time undetermined, 4.23 miles away, gps coordinates North 24 degrees 28.199, West 81 degrees 47.622"

    Time undetermined... Off duty... A data point smack in the middle of where data is missing... Hmm...

    Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 6.02.36 AM


    With nods to @malinaka, whom I believe pioneered the speed analysis, here are the hourly meters covered (and the number of data points used to calculate them) during the swim. Note that the morning of the final day may appear overly jagged because due to GPS dropout/the hour with only one data point.

    Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 7.01.45 AM


    It's possible that I introduced a data error via my conversion to Excel. (I don't think I did, but it's a possibility.) Tableau offers a free trial (for two weeks, I think?). I'm happy to forward my Excel file to anyone who would like to analyze it using Excel or Tableau.

    evmogregocrosemarymintDanSimonelliAnthonyMcCarleyIronMikephodgeszoho
  • What the heck are the orange spots? WAAAY the heck outside of any reasonable parameter? Was Hinckle even near the swimmer? boat?
    btw-- all this data stuff is way beyond my comprehension... but I can tell that there is some serious data missing.. or out of whack.
    thank you all for your efforts.

  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member

    @JenA "This is a zoom-in of the finish. Note that DN's (apparently) two SPOT devices stopped recording for 1 hour and 15 minutes the morning before she finished."

    My efforts were focused solely on the narratives of the observers and navigator. Not only is there a significant reduction in entries (and nothing meaningful: speed, distance or condition of the swimmer) during the last portion of the event, but there appears to be a "gap" in the observer coverage from 5am - 7am on Monday. (A lot was going wrong between Hour 40 and Hour 44. Then a potential observer coverage gap between Hour 44 and Hour 46.) When did the SPOT devices stop recording?

  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member

    @rosemarymint Based on questions raised by my review of the observer and navigator reports (link above), I am not comfortable agreeing that this is a completed assisted swim. I do agree, based on the documented touching of the swimmer and the referenced equipment used, that if completed, it would be an assisted swim.

    pavlicov
  • JenAJenA Charter Member
    edited January 2016

    @AnthonyMcCarley: The gap in DN's data is between these two data points

    24.45927, -81.79938 13-09-02 8:39:08
    24.48181, -81.79143 13-09-02 9:54:07

    "Time undetermined, 4.23 miles away, gps coordinates North 24 degrees 28.199, West 81 degrees 47.622" (24.466722, -81.783506) slots neatly between them. If she started at 9AM (give or take a couple of minutes) 8:40AM-10AM(ish) would be just before Hour 48 to 49(ish)?

    I happened to be able to make this graph really easily. :) Again, Janet Hinkle is in orange and Robert McVeigh is in green. It shows the number of characters (letters, spaces, punctuation, numbers, symbols) in each of their comments. On the right side is another axis: it estimates the number of words in each comment. (The average English word has five letters.) The numbers shown in each bar show how many comments the person made.

    So, for example, four hours in, Janet (orange) made one comment, and Roger (green) made five, but the both wrote about the same amount that hour. From 5PM on the second day until 1AM (8 hours), Roger went four hours without writing anything.

    (sorry, I've been editing this post to try to make the picture bigger, but I can't seem to do it.)
    Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 3.05.51 PM

  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
    edited January 2016

    @JenA At Hour 49.5 there is an unofficial entry by Hinkle. In this entry the swimmer is described as giving a "fleet" wide speech. It is the first description of the swimmer following a four hour period, Hour 40 to Hour 44, when the swimmer appears to be on the ropes.

    JenA
  • JenAJenA Charter Member
    edited January 2016

    So, it just sort of hit me that the spike in comments sort of occurs with the spike in speed. I mashed the graphs together, and noticed that the four-hour spike in speed seems to corresponds with the shift change.

    Although, curiously, at no time in the observer comments did either observer note the massive fluctuations in speed.

    Screen Shot 2016-01-04 at 3.11.52 PM

    Statistically speaking: the swim was about 53 hours long. There were 49 possible 4-hour windows during the swim (Hour 1-4, hour 2-5, hour 3-6, ..., hour 49-53.). With the way the observers switched shifts, there were 20 4-hour blocks where the same observer was on duty. If one random 4-hour speed spike were randomly distributed throughout the swim, the probability of the speed spike occurring block where the same observer is on duty is 40.8% (20/49).

  • JenAJenA Charter Member

    @Niek: except for a couple of what I assume are typos, the observer coordinates are relatively close (time-wise and distance-wise) to DN's two SPOT devices.

  • JenAJenA Charter Member

    Actually, @Niek, thanks to Vicki Keith, one of the world's great open water swimmers (80km of butterfly!), yes, they can. :-) http://www.penguinscanfly.ca/penguinscanfly/index.cfm?page=y_penguins

  • paulmpaulm Senior Member

    Great discussion....JenA I thought that the actual tracks from 2 spot devices that DN borrowed from someone were never made publically available- I know that one of DN's team (Chris ? ) came on the forum at some stage and gave the coordinates but due to privacy of the spot owners he didn't want to share the actual live tracks . The tracks you have mentioned did they come from those cords or from the actual spot tracks ? thanks !

  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
    edited January 2016

    Niek said:
    Who provided the (gps) coordinates to the observer(s)?

    Only personal observations would have been fit to use. They should have read the gps-data themselves from the device(s).


    It's easy to say we're now here while you're really somewhere else if not checked.

    It appears that some observer coordinates were direct observations and some were recordings of what they were told by the navigator. To my reading, the source wasn't always clear. Different sources for coordinates, in my opinion, is the likely explanation for the swimmer traveling "backwards" multiple times - according to the official narrative.

    If there is one thing that I believe is unarguable is that the observers were not experienced - did not possess the skills that are typically expected of observers. And were heavily reliant on what they were told - and it is not clear who was providing them instructions throughout the event. Since, I don't believe, there were neutral parties on the boat(s), the instructions were likely coming from the swimmer's team.

    rosemarymintsuziedods
  • JenAJenA Charter Member
    edited January 2016

    Here you go, @paulm: http://www.diananyad.com/blog/download-dianas-swim

    It appears the two SPOT feeds were merged together. The time intervals don't follow traditional SPOT gapping. IE: instead of 10-minute intervals, we see a mashup of two devices on 10-minute intervals:

    13-09-02 7:08:06
    ................................13-09-02 7:14:20
    13-09-02 7:18:41
    ................................13-09-02 7:24:19
    13-09-02 7:28:09
    ................................13-09-02 7:34:16
    13-09-02 7:38:07
    ................................13-09-02 7:44:30

  • paulmpaulm Senior Member
    edited January 2016

    Thanks @JenA - But wasn't this built from the coords supplied by Chris- Did anyone actually get to view the spot tracker actual track post the swim. ? (my apology if this has been covered previously )

  • JenAJenA Charter Member

    @paulm, yes, it was filtered through her team. I've reached out to @malinaka to see if he still has the original data he sourced from SPOT directly, I believe.

  • paulmpaulm Senior Member
    edited January 2016

    thanks @JenA , I would be keen to see if @malinaka has the original data/track from Spot. From memory the data/track that was appearing on DN's swim web page during the swim was manually updated by her team & NOT from the spot device. Hence why I was keen to see the actual track from Spot- which due to privacy concerns was not originally available

    JenA
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited January 2016

    @AnthonyMcCarley, is it fair to summarize the notable findings from your investigation of Hinkle and McVeigh's report as follows:

    • The last ~1/3 of the swim is remarkably vaguely documented in the observer report.
    • The documentation that does exist from this time, seems to portray bizarre, rapid changes in DN's state within seemingly short periods of time, alternating between delirium and giving inspiring speeches.
    • The report indicates there were times during which neither observer had eyes on DN. Which may understate how often this occurred, since it looks bad.
    • There is no mention in the report of the extremely rapid progress they were making due to the "magic current," which seems odd to anyone who has observed/supported a long swim before. (A magic current would typically be very notable and cause for great celebration.)
    • In general, the observer notes are quite amateurish, indicating (as we already knew) that the observers were, at best, highly inexperienced at the job.

    Is it also fair to say that the report fails to disconfirm what many have suspected, that there may have been some form of hanky-panky on the 2nd night of the event.

    DanSimonellirosemarymintrlm
  • Whilst unqualified to make any credible deductions concerning DN's swim the following points stand out: the 7 hour period without feeding, the period of super current speeds and the 4 hour period of no quality observer reporting. Is there an overlap period? Is it possible the observer/s were sleeping which allowed other events to occur during that period?

    It seems odd to have the three events occur during a relatively short period of time and her speed seems to bear little relation to someone not feeding but more to engines on tickover to maintain direction in a current.

    Just my gut feeling. The boat crew know what happened even if the swimming team won't say.

  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
    edited January 2016

    @evmo,
    It appears my approach of being neutral and objective during my review adversely impacted my communication. I am having multiple "out-of-forum" communications regarding this review. It is taking additional communication to connect the dots. My apologies. I am in the process of writing something that I believe will more effectively express my observations. In the meantime...

    To be clear, I disagree with you on almost every point of your summarization. You are being too kind and generous.

    The documents have so many gaps, have so many contradictions and raise so many questions, that I do not believe any objective reading would allow any unbiased person to believe the event was completed.

    My observation is that the most telling thing happened, or in this case stopped happening, at Hour 44. Up until Hour 44 there was information recorded by both observers and the navigator - not at regular intervals and not as much as a typical observer report, but still from the start of the event through Hour 32 there are seventeen (17) observer entries of speed or distance, and from the beginning of the event to Hour 44 there are about 70 (admittedly a subjective number) notable observer entries regarding Nyad’s physical and emotional condition. Nearly 90 meaningful entries – about two per hour for the first 44 hours.

    Between Hours 40 and 44 Nyad was described as “a bit delirious”, vomiting, switching to breaststroke, “veering right”, “bobbing in the water”, and “running on fumes”. On the boat, the doctors express concern about Nyad’s condition, there is “a lot of stress”, there is “more confusion”. And at one point Nyad is thought to be under the boat, then is found behind the boat.

    Then crickets. After Hour 44 nothing meaningful is reported – no description of Nyad’s condition, no speed or distance updates. Essentially all reporting stopped at Hour 44 of a 53-hour event. Nearly nine hours of silence. Nearly 20%, most importantly the last 20%, of the event.

    All speed or distance updates stopped at Hour 32. All condition of Nyad updates stopped at Hour 44.

    So, instead of, "The last ~1/3 of the swim is remarkably vaguely documented..." I would suggest something along the lines of, "After an established pattern of reporting, nothing meaningful was reported for the final nine hours of the event, which immediately followed the recording of events that anyone familiar with marathon swims would recognize as a swimmer who was at her limit. Speed and distance recordings stopped after the 32nd hour."

    Regarding, "The documentation that does exist from this time, seems to portray bizarre, rapid changes in DN's state within seemingly short periods of time, alternating between delirium and giving inspiring speeches."
    There are two particular times I found most troubling.
    One, McVeigh posted an entry while he wasn’t on the boat (Hour 21). If you believe his entry valid, then she did go through rapid changes at that time. If you don't believe it was a valid entry, then what is it? It isn't a mistake - the time and duration match up.
    Two, as mentioned above, a lot was going wrong at Hour 44. The only description of Nyad after this was an unofficial entry from Hinkle (while McVeigh was the observer) at Hour 49.5 where Nyad is giving an inspirational speech to the entire "fleet" - presumably while still in the water. How did Nyad go from broken down to giving a speech - by swimming five more hours? How did this miraculous recovery not inspire someone to record it?

    "The report indicates there were times during which neither observer had eyes on DN."

    Agreed. There are multiple entries where the reports indicate or imply the observer could not see Nyad. It appears that there may be a two-hour gap of observer coverage - immediately following the critical Hour 44. This potential two-hour gap started at 5:10 am, before sunrise - while still dark. I believe it important to point out here the disconnect between boats. For example, the report states that because of storm protocol a scheduled observer shift was delayed by hours - but the observer not on duty didn't realize that storm protocol was invoked until back on board the primary boat.

    "There is no mention in the report of the extremely rapid progress they were making due to the "magic current," which seems odd to anyone who has observed/supported a long swim before. (A magic current would typically be very notable and cause for great celebration.)"

    I did not follow the story closely, so don't know if her team used the "magic current" term in their presentations to the press. It was not used in the reports. According to reports, Nyad traveled slower than 1.0 mph early in the event. Later in the event Nyad traveled 3.91 mph for five and a half hours and 3.27 mph for 17 hours of the event. No special excitement was recorded.

    I believe it is important to ask: If the navigator was so good that he was able to find a current that enabled for her to travel that fast, why didn’t he know when sunset would occur and why were all of his predictions of completion so much later than the actual finish time?

    "In general, the observer notes are quite amateurish, indicating (as we already knew) that the observers were, at best, highly inexperienced at the job."

    @evmo, while you are clearly right, I don’t think that is the issue. Why did she recruit such inexperienced observers? A reporter recently sent me a link to an article in which Hinkle was quoted as saying, "I can say unequivocally she swam every stroke without question." But according to the official reports, the other observer, McVeigh, observed 31 hours of the 53-hour event and Hinkle wasn’t even on the boat (that could see Nyad). With so much attention given to every detail (doctors, special navigator, shark divers, a jellyfish expert, specialized suit, etc.), I don’t see how it is rational to believe there wasn't detailed planning behind the selecting of people who would be willing to make such bold assertions to the press - bold assertions they couldn’t possibly know are true.

    "Is it also fair to say that the report fails to disconfirm what many have suspected, that there may have been some form of hanky-panky on the 2nd night of the event."

    Again, evmo, you are being too generous. I am happy to apologize if anyone can point to my misreading, misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the reports, but I don’t see how anyone can objectively review her reports and believe Nyad completed the event.

    @WarmWater, my review was of the documents as they appeared in November 2015; therefore, I cannot speak to a seven hour feeding gap.

    I believe that the timeline which can be found at the link in the post above accurately reflects the reporting and coverage of the observers. As I said to evmo, I am happy to apologize if anyone can point to my misreading, misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the reports. I welcome scrutiny.


    IronMikeDanSimonelliLeonard_JansenevmoJenATheoJSwim
  • phodgeszohophodgeszoho UKSenior Member

    I have made a start at drawing @AnthonyMcCarley timeline and incorporating it with other bits and pieces that have been posted on this topic. Must confess I am losing interest as there is a lot to go through and also struggling understand the timestamps on the original GPS (digital) data compared to GPS (degrees) mentioned in the observer notes.

    DNS

    Anyway thought I would share the first draft. If I get time in the coming weeks I will try and get back and finish it but must confess the topic has never really interested me so motivation is lacking. Only had a crack at it because I was more interested to play with the data, maps and charts that others had contributed.

    evmoDanSimonelliAnthonyMcCarleypavlicov
  • phodgeszohophodgeszoho UKSenior Member

    @Niek sorry no link. As mentioned above it is not finished yet so haven't created a PDF version.

  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
    edited January 2016

    @phodgeszoho ,
    This looks like great and interesting work. I completely understand why you don't find it particularly interesting. Until prompted to do my research, I felt the same way. Now, it is so much more than the claim to a completed swim. I am fascinated by it - I see it as a commentary on today's world - from lack of investigative reporting (I did nothing more than any English speaking reporter could have done), to the blind acceptance of fans/ followers, to the need for headlines in the fast paced internet world, to the use of tactics to silence truth, to how a bold assertion even unverified can be an incredible money maker and attention getter.

    I am having a hard time making out the images on your document - can't wait to see the finished project.

    Just to be clear, all I did was merge the observers' reports and then log what I deemed important on a timeline. (The un-merged and merged observer reports are both included in the document at the link in the post above.)

    The simple act of merging the reports created one narrative - one story. Creating one story made some things obvious that weren’t obvious to me when reading the reports as two different narratives. (I can see why reading the documents separately might fool people.) The gap from Hour 44 to Hour 46 punched me in the face. The entry from McVeigh at Hour 21 when he wasn't on the boat demanded me to question everything. The unusual voice McVeigh chose to write his report stood out - writing in the third person. The number of questions grew exponentially by combining the reports. For example, when they had been switching, why was McVeigh the observer for the final seven (or was it nine?) hours of the event? There is a typical story arc to the combined narrative - a buildup of events leading to the climax of all hell breaking loose at Hour 44. Instead of providing a resolution to the story, the narrative goes silent - no more information - just a (hollow) claim of victory.

    I look forward to learning from your completed project. Thank you.

    IronMikeDanSimonellievmosuziedodsSydneD
  • phodgeszohophodgeszoho UKSenior Member

    Inspired by @AnthonyMcCarley I have been working on a PDF that collates all the observer reports, maps, speed chart etc. into a single resource.

    You can view a version of this here: http://bit.ly/1QNiu0w

    If you do wish to share the PDF then I would ask that people share the link rather then the actual PDF, that way if I do any further work or any mistakes need correcting then I will just replace the PDF at the source rather then try to distribute new copies.

    I have branded it with the MSF logo (I checked that was OK with @evmo & @loneswimmer first). I did this because a lot of the inspiration and data analysis originated on the forum and I felt it deserved some recognition in the role it has played in the creation of this document.

    Although Anthony's work inspired this PDF, I have not used his analysis or referenced his conclusions but instead I went back to the source reports as shared and stripped out all the content into a single narrative. However, unlike Anthony's, I also included the posts from the "Media Team" that were shared on DN's blog during the swim and also inserted visual's of the Navigator's log.

    The Media Team posts where not originally posted in sequential order however most, if not all of them, do contain time references in the content so it has been relatively easy to put them in the correct order and in thus into context of the two Observers' and Navigator's reports.

    I have also attempted to relate the timelines to the GPS plot and also overlaid the current chart as provided in the Navigator's log. The timeline visualisations are broken down over the first two pages, page 1 by origin and page 2 by type. I have also attempted to annotate the full text with icons and photos where appropriate.

    I have put all this together to provide a reference document for anyone who wishes to make themselves better informed about the information that is available from the "Dream Team" and I have tried to keep it neutral and thus added no "conclusions" or "summations".

    There is a lot of information here.

    Enjoy!

    Diana-Nyad-Cuba-Florida-Swim-Dataviz-Page-1

    Diana-Nyad-Cuba-Florida-Swim-Dataviz-Page-2

    Diana-Nyad-Cuba-Florida-Swim-Dataviz-Page-6

    evmoJSwimpavlicovChrisgreeneJenADanSimonelligregocsuziedodsloneswimmerlakespraySidMott
  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member

    Great work @phodgeszoho! Greatly appreciated. Wow!
    I will go through in greater detail, but a couple of initial comments.

    • I believe entry Green 66 should be yellow (or pink – since it is an unofficial entry by Hinkle, not McVeigh).

    • It would be interesting to see the visual impact of your document with and without the Media Team input.

    • You quote the Shifts as they were written in the opening observer comments (not the conflicting times in the individual reports), but the details of the documents read as if Shift 10 potentially ended at 5:10am Monday.

    Nits compared to your wonderfully detailed work, but I believe important nits (and why I immediately zeroed in on them).

    Thank you so much for all this great work and I can’t wait to go through it in detail - I appreciate the scrutiny!

    phodgeszohoJenADanSimonellisuziedodsloneswimmer
  • phodgeszohophodgeszoho UKSenior Member

    Good spot. 66 Green changed to 76 Orange and others altered accordingly. I have tweaked the shifts so 10/11 is at 07:15 and also added a note on the text "Observer Shifts (from McVeigh’s Report introduction):"

    "Mon. 07:15 McVeigh’s last shift started at 7:16 am Monday, September 2, 2013 Excitement is building"

    PDF has been updated and can be downloaded from the same link: http://bit.ly/1QNiu0w

    I am sure there will be other mistakes/corrections. I seem to spot something everytime I look at the bloody thing... :-/

    JenAAnthonyMcCarley
  • JenAJenA Charter Member
    edited February 2016

    Wow, way to go @phodgeszoho! :)

    It would be interesting to plot Diana's route with dots colour-coded to indicate speed overtop the current vector map background. Or, hehe, to animate the data in realtime and make an animated GIF. :)

    I thought the media team changed their tweets after the event? I thought that they originally tweeted about an intentional 7.5 hour period without feeding, which was later retracted?

    DanSimonelli
  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
    edited February 2016

    @phodgeszoho,

    Sorry, I am not speaking of just a 15 minute change between the opening summary and the actual recordings.

    From Hinkle at the end of Shift 10,

    _“Mon. 5:10 am
    (took video) Kayker singing: :Follow the light. Follow the light. On-ward to Flor-i-da..Find a way..follow the lights to Flor-i-da..Find a way to Flor-i-da ...onward to find a way....Onward, onward, to Flor-i-da

    Diana stopping and starting...periodically asking for water and nourishment...effort is to just keep her going...I recall now that she was very apologetic to divers for throwing up.. They respond..."don’t worry, it’s just fish food."

    Key West lights getting brighter on the horizon. No jellyfish sighted.

    SHIFT ENDS.

    I assumed a position on the bow of Dreams Do Come True and monitored progress of the swim. (Roger on boat as official observer)”_

    This reads to me as if Shift 10 ended at 5:10am and Shift 11 doesn’t start until 7:15am - Just after Nyad showed all the signs of a swimmer who was broken. If you read it as if Hinkle was on board until 7:15am, then considering her volume of entries during the previous four hours, it is extremely odd that she went silent for these two hours.

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    edited February 2016

    JenA said:
    Wow, way to go @phodgeszoho! :)

    It would be interesting to plot Diana's route with dots colour-coded to indicate speed overtop the current vector map background. Or, hehe, to animate the data in realtime and make an animated GIF. :)

    I thought the media team changed their tweets after the event? I thought that they originally tweeted about an intentional 7.5 hour period without feeding, which was later retracted?

    Jen, I pointed this out in my blog at the time, and how they added in a feed after the fact. This is straight from her team's page:

    Condition Report
    Monday September 2, 2013 at 715am. Swim Time: 46:15
    reported by: Katie Leigh

    Diana has gotten very cold, so the handlers were not stopping her to eat and drink overnight in the hopes that swimming would keep her warm. Additionally it was difficult to get her oriented to the boat and where to go in the dark.
    Both doctors were aboard Voyager all night long to monitor Diana’s condition.

    Diana’s Condition Report, First Light
    Monday, 7:30 a.m., Swim time: 46:31
    When the whistle blew for Diana’s first feeding stop since before midnight, it took her longer than normal to reach Voyager and Handlers Bonnie, Pauline and Lois Ann, who were positioned on the swim platform near the water’s edge.

    Here's what was added to the team's page after the fact:

    First Feeding Since Storm
    2:00am Monday September 2, 2013. Swim time: 41:00
    Reported by: Candace Hogan
    Voyager on VHF radio communicating to the flotilla 41 hours into the swim:
    Diana came in for the first time since we’ve resumed formation, for a feeding. She knows where she is; she understands what’s going on. Almost 90 percent [coherent] she asked me specific questions.
    Another boat responds: God speed, Diana.

    Here's my blog entry on this. Formatting is better on my blog. No idea why the forum here adjusts the formatting of the original and I'm tired of trying to fix it. (Edit: thanks @evmo for fixing my formatting!)

    JenADanSimonelli

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    And you can see the comments on page 13 ("Update 2am") and 14 ("Doctor's report 7:15am") of @AnthonyMcCarley's awesome work.

    DanSimonelli

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • phodgeszohophodgeszoho UKSenior Member

    @AnthonyMcCarley yes that is true she does say "Shift Ends.", and I am sure I am going to get beaten up here, but there is no reason to assume that is associated with the 5:10am time from three paragraphs below. Her log is peppered with "Shift Ends" written in CAPS and if you were to assume that everyone of them is associated with the previous time stamp then you would also need to make the assumption that all her shifts finished early.

    For example:

    Sat. 2:39 pm ...

    SHIFT ENDS.

    Sat. 8:55 pm ...

    SHIFT ENDS.

    Sun 6:43 am ...

    SHIFT ENDS.

    Sun. 4:38 pm ...

    SHIFT ENDS.

    Mon. 5:10 am ...

    SHIFT ENDS.

    I feel everyone should focus on what is explicitly clear from he documentation and that is NO official observations or media reports were made from 5:15 to 7:15 on the Monday morning. If it was her shift, or his shift, or no one's shift I feel can, unfortunately, not be explicitly inferred either way.

    I have listed the shifts in two places, as reported in Roger McVeigh's intro and then displayed on the timeline as a visual cue to illustrate which comments were made during the "reported" shift and those made outside the "reported" shift.

    @IronMike those comments and contradictions that you mentioned above are still in the media posts online and because I have added all of the media posts to this version of the narrative they are also included in the PDF.

    See page 14: Mon. 02:00 Update 2am: First Feeding Since Storm - Posted: Mon. 02:37
    See page 15: Mon. 07:15 Doctor's Report 715am – 730am - Posted: Mon. 09:04

    It would take a lot of work to trawl through every page but there are online tools that let you see versions of websites from cache snap shots. Web Archive is one:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20130905053440/http://www.diananyad.com/blog

    @JenA please note that I have only included the blog posts, not "tweets". I did consider looking back through Twitter and seeing if I could also include a selection of this content but that could be a potentially huge piece of work. Also on the DN tweet account very little was posted so I would have to assume that if anything was Tweeted it was under other accounts and thus it all started to become a bit vague.

    Everyone, I ask that you please do not take any of this as an indication that I am on DN's "side". I am simply trying to remain objective and provide people with a document that let's them make up their own minds.

    IronMikeDanSimonellimsathlete
  • AnthonyMcCarleyAnthonyMcCarley Berwyn, PACharter Member
    edited February 2016

    @phodgeszoho , I hope you don’t really feel as if you are going to get beat up – at least by me. I approached the project with the same objectivity as you did. I have tried to be careful to call the Monday 5am to 7am lack of information a potential gap in coverage. If you read the logs as if Hinkle was still on board, that is a reasonable position to take. It could also be read the other way since she specifically logs she changed positions under the same time stamp. It still says a lot that nothing was recorded during those two hours – especially if Hinkle was still the observer as it then represents a dramatic change in her recording behavior (since she recorded so many details during the previous four hours).

    Would it be difficult to produce a version of your document without the pink entries of the Media Team?

    When I produced my (obviously-amateurish-compared-to-yours) timeline, I originally thought the timeline would speak for itself. A friend who proofread the work insisted that it needed a summary with conclusions. I have come to believe my friend was correct. As you are someone who has been immersed in the details, I am extremely interested in your personal conclusions regarding this event.

    DanSimonellisuziedodsIronMike
  • Great discussion....JenA I thought that the actual tracks from 2 spot devices that DN borrowed from someone were never made publically available- I know that one of DN's team (Chris ? ) came on the forum at some stage and gave the coordinates but** due to privacy of the spot owners **he didn't want to share the actual live tracks .

    I completely do not understand that comment. How can "spot tracks "not be shared due to privacy of owners?
    The owner data can always be blocked,but why they would want to do that I do not know.
    And therein lies part of the problem. A very public well funded swim has to BORROW spot trackers? WTF?
    Bit of a red herring here sorry.

    DanSimonellislknightIronMike
  • paulmpaulm Senior Member
    edited February 2016

    @b9chris:
    September 2013
    @paulm said:

    Hi Chris, Welcome and thanks for sharing the information. As Spot saves the tracks for 30 days- Is it possible for you to share the actual spot tracking page of the swim from the Spot site ??

    So, 2 problems there:

    1) Both were lent to us, meaning they'll be reused by those who lent them, so they'll be reused for their own private adventures through the world - it's not really my place to post on a public forum how to track these kind lenders.

    2) The Spots were both left on after the swim was completed, following the boats and then the people carrying them. It appears one went so far as to go all the way home with one person, not so great as privacy goes. I didn't notice this until now when I was considering posting them here, so I've reached out to the relevant people to have them switched off.

    So, perhaps if there was one person here you all felt was trustworthy not to pass the URLs on, I could PM them to that person, with an understanding that there's a lot of extraneous, sensitive data besides the swim on there and to keep things isolated to just the fact-checking task. But since this is a public forum, it's not that I don't trust members here, but the internet has plenty of roaming jerks, and a public forum isn't the right place to just paste and say go for it.


    Sorry...I didn't the quote button properly but the above is a direct quote from the DN feed from @b9chris Sep 13- there are a couple of other posts on this topic on that page.

    I am with you @suziedods on this one- I would be keen to see if the actual data direct from the spot trackers were shared with anyone on this site ?

    DanSimonelliIronMikeAnthonyMcCarley
  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    The whole reason for Spot trackers is so that others can follow along with your adventure. At least, that's my take on these wonders of modern tech. I'm going to get one for my second attempt at Issyk Kul and you'll be damned sure I'll have it charged up and ready for my family and friends to watch.

    I don't buy it for one second that there are any privacy issues with the "borrowed" Spot Trackers. And I agree with @suziedods. How much did DN spend on this thing and she/they can't afford their own Spot trackers?

    I smell

    dpm50suziedodsDanSimonelli

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited February 2016

    @suziedods said: I completely do not understand that comment. How can "spot tracks "not be shared due to privacy of owners?

    I'm familiar with SPOT tracker technology, the public API, and the account interface for SPOT owners. Owner privacy can be protected simply by creating a new "Share Page" for the account, which can be accomplished in a few clicks and keystrokes. Any new tracks created by the owner on their various adventures around the world would show up on a new URL, thus protecting the owner from anyone who knew the URL of DN's data.

    @paulm said: I would be keen to see if the actual data direct from the spot trackers were shared with anyone on this site ?

    No raw data were shared with us. Andrew originally scraped data from the underlying javascript of DN's website. Subsequently (when the Forum thread became international news), DN's tech consultant @b9chris shared a Google spreadsheet with us, purportedly a CSV export of the Lat/Long coordinates from the SPOT feed (i.e., not the raw data).

    DanSimonellisuziedodsJenAAnthonyMcCarley
  • JenAJenA Charter Member

    @IronMike said:
    I smell

    Chocolate ice cream? ;-)

    gregocdpm50IronMike
  • paulmpaulm Senior Member
    edited February 2016

    evmo said:
    Owner privacy can be protected simply by creating a new "Share Page" for the account

    ...

    No raw data were shared with us.

    @evmo that has was always frustrated (and disappointed me ) . I sat and watched many hours of the swim via the website track and believe that the tracks that were posted appeared to have been manually updated rather then your typical spot tracks . I have questioned this a few times and was hoping that the actual tracks would have been supplied (not spread sheets ) to assist with credibility for the swim.

    That said I also spent close to an hour watching DN's 48 hour swim in Time square and saw her get out of the pool for close to 30 mins during the NY evening with little spectators in attendance. I get toilet break in pools but close to 30 mins is a bit much for a non stop swim (unless there was lots of issues like @IronMike picture above ) :)

    gregocIronMikesuziedods
  • RobertPalmeseRobertPalmese San Diego, CAGuest

    Did she have a navigational aid? The pipe with a line hanging down in the water to guide off of?

  • DanSimonelliDanSimonelli San Diego CASenior Member

    RobertPalmese said:
    Did she have a navigational aid? The pipe with a line hanging down in the water to guide off of?

    Yes.

    JenA
This discussion has been closed.