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I find it persistently annoying that the [sup]o[/sup] isn't available on UK keyboards. As a symbol, º is called the 'masculine ordinal indicator' in LibreOffice, as I just discovered when I copied it across.
Good point about the measurement, but slightly more simply, 30.5 (strictly speaking 30.48m) is 100 feet. 1 yard is 3 feet, so the primary measure that those who devised the pool length were thinking about was clearly feet. Good to see that the pool is still flying the flag for metric martyrism. :)
Yes, that remark about the temperature mystified me, too. I can only imagine that he must mean the air temperature--29ºC as water temperature is *really* warm.
Oliver Schick-
so the primary measure that those who devised the pool length were thinking about was clearly feet
No. My local pool is 33+1/3m long (as is the one I grew swimming in 30+ years ago). There's no metric equivalent of a 1/3m so that argument falls away. It's purely so that you swim a specific distance in a whole number of lengths. Most pools built nowadays are 25m, 33+1/3m or 50m for this very reason. Other lengths are generally due to space constraints.
The pool in question was obviously built when swim distances were based on yards.
Greenbank
Interesting, thanks for the link.
"It has a slightly odd length at 30.5m, which makes the maths a bit tricky when trying to work out how far I’ve swum’"
Only if you think of it in meters. 30.5m will be a 33+1/3 yard pool so 3 lengths is 100 yards.
Also:-
"
Staff have been keeping the temperature at the usual 29C (84F) during lockdown
...
‘I always find this pool a bit on the cold side when I swim here, but the colder water does seem to sharpen up the stroke somehow’
"
29oC cold for an indoor pool? What kind of insanity is that? Most aim for 26oC-28oC (and Olympic pool regs are 25oC-28oC.) I hate pools when they're too warm.