Hopefully, the achievements of ferrets can be compared all over the world in
a meaningful manner by setting up certain accepted standards for some of the
olympic events.  This posting is an attempt to start that process by
defining just how the swim and sprint race course is set up here in Seattle
at the upcoming Ferret Olympics scheduled for this Sunday 28 June and the
last Sunday in August the 30th.
 
We set up the swim event by driving two bars, posts, of iron into the bed of
Lake Washington so that they extend about a foot above the surface of the
lake.  We tie to each of these "rebar" the ends of a non-stretchable nylon,
white line that is precisely 25-feet in length.  The nylon line is thus
suspended level as possible about 1 foot below the surface of the water and
since it is white and quite visible beneath the surface of the water, it
acts as a guide line to keep the swimming ferret on a straight course
between the two posts or rebars.
 
To keep the ferret swimming in the straightest line possible, a person in a
swimsuit and with old tennis shoes on goes along just behind the ferret.
When the ferret deviates either left or right from the guide line, a simple
touch to its shoulder brings the ferret back over the nylon line and
swimming straight to the second post 25-feet away.
 
As you may already know its much easier to get a ferret to swim than it is
to get it to run.  Especially run the full length of a 25-foot run.  Ferrets
that hate to get baths make the fastest swimmers.  Ferrets that have a
fondness for a special treat make for the fastest runners when the treat is
positioned just ahead of them.
 
The ferret is placed gently into the water full bodied at about a foot
behind the first rebar and some are nudged in the direction toward the
two rebars.  As the now swimming ferret's nose passes the first rebar the
swimsuit guy (or gal) in the water raises his hands swiftly so the timing
judge on shore can start his stopwatch.  As the ferret is guided straight
away and swims the 25-feet to the second rebar the hands go up in the air
again and the judge ashore stops his timer and records the time for that
particular ferret.  The time is taken to the 1/100 second.
 
To be meaningful to most of us who are familiar with miles per hour moreso
that feet per second, we do a little bit of calculating to convert the time
recorded and the distance covered into a speed of miles per hour or
kilimeters per hour.
 
The simple formula for this conversion is to multiply the time as a
reciprocal (i.e., 1 over the time in seconds) by the constant 17.04545 to
get miles per hour.  For our metric friends all over the world, they should
use the constant 27.432 to get the ferret's speed in kilometers per hour.
 
The results from last year's olympics:  1.74 miles per hour swimming and
5.63 miles per hour sprinting.  (Translation to metric:  2.80 kilometers
per hour and 9.06 km/hr)
 
Is there a ferret somewhere out there in the world that can beat these
record speeds?
 
Maybe yours can!
 
Tallyho chaps!                           Edward Frettchenvergnuegen
Lipinski,
                                                         Der
Frettchenlustbarkeitsfuehrer.
[Posted in FML issue 2348]