And so many swimmers in The Whakatipu Legend got a thrill doing just that off the TSS Earnslaw into Frankton Arm last year, the organisers decided to repeat the exercise.
Race co-director Richie Lambert says the atmosphere aboard the historic steamship was "just so good, we had to repeat it" for the fifth annual event this Saturday morning.
About 180 swimmers will jump off the vintage steamship into Lake Whakatipu — the temperature about 14°C — at 7.40am for The Legend 4km swim back to Queenstown Bay.
Like last year, swimmers can choose between a 1.5m plop into the water or an audacious 3.5m leap from the bow.
Lambert’s expecting about 90 people in the 2km Beacon Swim, from 9.30am, and 70 in the 1km Bay Swim, from 10.30am — both of which start and finish at the Queenstown Bay beach.
He reckons about 60 swimmers will have a crack at the Triple Challenge, in which they’ll attempt all three swims in succession for a total of 7km.
All the races have various age group categories, ranging from under-15 for the Bay Swim to a 60-plus category for all distances.
There’s a record number of entries this year, continuing the event’s steady rise in popularity, he says.
As well as strong support from Queenstown’s growing lake swimming fraternity, people are coming from throughout the lower South Island, Australia and beyond.
Lambert says he’d thought incorporating the Earnslaw into last year’s event would be a one-off, "but we had such a great response".
He knows of only two other events worldwide — in Norway and San Francisco — where swimmers start from a boat, and neither involve jumping from a height.
"It’s much harder for us to do something like this, but we wanted something unique."
