One communication tip for the crew - YELL

Here's a video of Joe Locke's recent attempt to swim from the Farallon islands to Golden Gate a few weeks ago.  I was watching his spotGPS and was rooting for him the whole way.  I was disappointed for Joe when I saw that he was pulled.  He did a majority of it.  It was a valiant effort!

Here's the video:


One thing that stood out to me had nothing to do with swimming, but communication.  I'm not sure if Joe is wearing ear plugs, I sure do.  Notice how many times he asks for Vito to repeat what was said.  For me that would be frustrating.  Frustration and wasted time: two things that shouldn't happen during a swim where every second counts.  It reminded me of a similar situation in England last year.  Cathi was trying to tell me something, and I couldn't hear what she was saying.  Here's what I wrote:  

"After Josh got out I kept on going and at some point during a feed Cathi tried telling me something.With my ear plugs I couldn't hear, so I yelled out "Speak up!!!"  She jumped.  She yelled back....[the statement]"

If you are on my crew, I need you to YELL,  I'll get pissed off if I constantly have to ask for a repeat.  It's just a matter of volume, not emotion.  So it won't hurt my feelings, in fact it'll show me that your words are important enough to come from your gut.