What made this maneuver interesting was that, with a bunch of bodies in the water, we inevitably clumped together as a group. Of course, this made things interesting when your next-door neighbor needed to take a breath. Looking back, it seems obvious to me that this was all a result of surface tension... In essence, our bodies each created a slight downward (concave) meniscus on the water's surface, and over time our menisci combined and we all basically "slid downhill" to the center of the pool. It may be that my interpretation is utter malarkey, but it was an interesting phenomenon in any case.
What triggered my memory of the Dead Man's Float was driving to the kart track this evening. I take I-25 for part of the route, and in that area the speed limit is 65. However, my El Cheapo trailer from Harbor Freight Tools is rated to 55 mph max. Not wanting to tear up my equipment any more than necessary, I adhere to that limit.
Does traveling 10 mph under the speed limit mean I'm going 15-20 mph slower than the flow of traffic? Hardly. Something about the sight of the kart on the trailer being pulled by something other than a truck (i.e., my Mazda6 wagon) causes other motorists to stick to me like glue. I've had people fall in diagonally behind me and match my speed, possibly slack-jawed, for miles before suddenly snapping out of the trance-like state and accelerating off into the sunset.
As you might guess, I wonder what these other drivers are missing while they're ogling my POS kart...
