If you can get a good draft on the swim it can make a night/day difference in terms of perceived effort. If you can find people going your pace you'll find that even if they're zigzagging a bit you'll still be using less effort and swiming a faster time.

Easiest way to tell if you're on the right feet...if you try passing them at your normal comfortable stroke, and pull up alongside but don't really pass, stay there. If you start to pass, find some other feet in front of you and kick it up a notch to latch on to them, then relax.

That said, most people find it a more difficult skill without practice: being able to feel the bubbles, draft without looking up (and sinking your hindquarters), correct for variations or take the inner line to the zigzags. If you can just find a group of friends/athletes and practice.

It's great if you can find someone to draft with, problem is it's hard to find someone to draft with most of the times. I did it at IM Brazil and I was shocked at my time, 56 min.

Some people draft but they forget to sight, so if the person you are drafting with is going of course you will be of course too.

Another thing is, you might be faster than the person you are drafting, in a longer race that might be ok, but for a shorter race it might not be an ideal situation.

Yes, this is something you need to practice, it's just nothing something you can do out of the chute the first time.

From years and years of swim team trainings and swimming with multiple people in one lane it is definitely something you can do and an experienced swimmer can really note the difference in how they 'feel' the water. I remember always being coached that if you were ahead of someone in a race (in a pool) to stay away from the lane marker seperating them from you, and vice vesra...that is if you are slightly behind someone in a race to get closer to their lane marker if they were also near the marker. I know after alot of swimming I could definitely tell when I was in someone's draft, even if I wasn't right behind them.

Since this is my first year of tri's I am a little new to open water swimming, but agree with Riverbrady about getting in behind someone and going at a slower than normal pace. When I did a half iron distance race during the swim I got behind someone that was at what I felt was a good pace for what I expected to swim at. About every 2-3 minutes or whenever I felt the pace change I would pull out of the draft and see if I could keep up or go past. For the first half of the swim I just kept peeking out and getting back in line then on the second lap and after weaving through traffic from a previous wave I flet the pace slow down. Pulled out, said a mental thank you for the tow for the first 15 minutes then swam on my own (with several people now in my wake) and came in within 8 seconds of what I expected to swim.

So it is worthwhile and definitely if you are an experienced swimmer you can tell the difference, but just don't get complacent in the wake of someone.

Could someone please explain exactly where one should be when drafting? It sounds to me that from what people are saying it is at the feet of the person in front of you. Makes sense in a pool because that's really the only place you can be. But I'm wondering about open water swimming.

My common sense tells me you should swim to either side of the swimmer in front of you and maybe overlapping a bit. I'm thinking that the drafting sweet spot should be more like geese and air planes in formation. I would think that being directly behind someone would be more turbulent and thus more work.

Doesn't that change in OWS where there is a cross current? - I thought then depending upon the which side it was coming from then you were to go to the other side and just off of the hip.

In IMWI this year I had someone try to draft me. They kept hitting me in the feet with their hands. After the third time I started kicking really hard. They took the hint and moved to draft off someone else. I don't care if you draft just don't be annoying :)

Remember too, that if you want to find someone for the long haul, you'd better start looking quick, or else everyone that is a little faster than you is going to already be out of reach, and you'll be drafting off of slo-mos (like me) the whole time.

I drafted a speedster in one of my first Olympics. It was great until I finally decided to sight and realized that this guy had taken us about 200 yards in the wrong direction. Oops! Now I sight every 5 or 6 strokes regardless of where I am in the pack.