In 1998, French long-distance swimmer Ben Lecomte became the first person to swim across the Atlantic ocean. Free-styling across 3,700 miles, it took Ben 73 days to make the journey. His first words on reaching land: “Never again.†The swim was monumentally arduous, and the effort is surely pretty close to the best a humanoid like you or I could do. But if you were, say, Aquaman, you could swim Ben’s route in just 30 minutes. So how does Aquaman swim so dang fast?
Arthur Curry, a.k.a. Aquaman, is probably most famous for being the superhero that talks to fish, but his swimming—as depicted in comics and films—should be right up there with his most impressive powers. Traveling through the water as fast as he does, I will argue, is even more astounding than flying really fast like Superman because of the unique challenges underwater motion presents. So how does Aquaman move so quickly through the water? How much power does it take to push through the waves? Let’s grab our five-pointed pentadents, and figure it out.
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