Alana Aubin: 2022 Frank Wuest Open Water Award

Sometimes, the fastest swimmers don’t consider lending a hand to the slower swimmers around them, but happily, that’s not the case with long-time volunteer and passionate advocate of open water swimming, Alana Aubin. 

The enthusiastic New England Masters Swim Club member started swimming competitively at age 10 and launched her open water swimming career some 13 years later. She finished her first marathon swim in 2016. The whip-smart Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduate has climbed the podium of many open water events over the years, including these selected highlights:

• 2nd overall in the 2015 Charles River Swim

• 1st overall Charles River Swim in 2016, coincidently placing ahead of Frank Wuest with an epic battle at the end, winning by less than 5 seconds that year

•  5th place finish in the 2016 10K Kingdom Swim in Vermont

• 3rd place finish in the 2017 10K Kingdom Swim in Vermont

• 1st female (2nd overall) in the 2018 10K Kingdom Swim in Vermont

• 1st female finisher (3rd overall) in the 2018 Boston Light Swim

• 1st overall finisher in the 2019 10K Swim with a Mission in Newfound Lake, New Hampshire 

• Completed a solo Double Boston Light Swim (16 miles) in 2019 and set a new course record of 6:18:01

• 2nd place finisher of the 2019 USMS National Championship in Lake Willoughby, Vermont

• 2019 USMS Long Distance All Star, recognized as a combination of Open Water National Championships and Virtual Championships event results

• 1st overall in the 2021 10K race at Kingdom Swim, Lake Memphremagog, Vermont

• Completed the 2022 Border Buster, a 25K race in Lake Memphremagog, Vermont

• 1st in the 50-meter freestyle at the 2022 Memphremagog Winter Swimming Festival (water temperature 31 degrees F)

Aubin is a USMS Level 3 certified coach who gives back at many levels of swimming. She has led the New England Masters Swim Club and has served on the NELMSC Board as president and communications chair. Her communications efforts garnered her the 2019 U.S. Masters Swimming June Krauser Award. 

Aubin has made a substantial contribution to growing open water swimming in New England by serving as vice president and treasurer for the Massachusetts Open Water Swimming Association. In that capacity, she manages the all-volunteer-run non-profit organization’s financial and business operations and assists in organizing the group’s several open water swims, including the flagship Boston Light Swim, an 8-mile race across Boston Harbor that was first staged in 1907.

Through her astute actions and ongoing, passionate dedication, Aubin continues to promote open water swimming while serving as a leader, role model, and committed community builder in the sport.

Jen Downing: 2023 Frank Wuest Open Water Award

Masters swimmers in the greater Boston area who enjoy open water swimming will have no doubt crossed paths with Jennifer Downing at some point over the last two decades. The welcoming and talented open water swimmer and volunteer’s lengthy resume of high-performance in open water is certainly impressive: 

•  Downing finished first overall in the 2021 Boston Light Swim. She has also been a frequent supporter of the event, crewing for Tommy Gainer, Lauren Au, Helen Lin, Jessica Stokes, Alana Aubin, and others over the years. 

• On August 10, 2023, Downing completed the first one-way Nantasket to Nahant Solo Swim, sanctioned and observed by the Massachusetts Open Water Swimming Association. Her course record of 4:05:01 still stands. 

• The long-time Swim Across America supporter has been involved with the organization since 2006 and serves as a leading member of the SAA Boston Organizing Committee. She had been an angel swimmer, top fundraiser, and volunteer coordinator for many years for both SAA Boston and SAA Rhode Island.

• Downing serves as a kayak captain for the 1-mile Charles River Swim every year.

• Downing has competed and podiumed at a range of local races over the years including the Maspee SuperSwim, the Salem Wildish and Salem Swim & Fin events, the Nubble Light Challenge, and many others. 

• She has also taken her enthusiastic support of other open water swimmers on the road; in 2015, she crewed for Maura Twomey in her successful solo crossing of the English Channel and supported Dori Miller on her several swims in that storied waterway.

Beyond open water, Downing is a fierce pool competitor who has represented New England Masters at USMS Nationals more than 13 times and competed at FINA World Masters Championships four times. She’s notched more than 150 Top 10 times and achieved All-American and All-Star honors. 

Ever the volunteer, Downing has served as the Open Water Sanctions Chair, LMSC Postals Chair, and Secretary for the New England LMSC. She currently works for Harvard University as Associate Director of Development, Athletics overseeing all aspects of stewardship for Athletics. She’s been involved in numerous capital projects to develop and renovative athletic facilities and groups on campus and has been instrumental in securing 15 head coach endowments along with numerous endowment funds supporting 42 varsity programs and additional club teams. 

As an undergraduate at Wellesley College, Downing was a four-year Academic All-American swimmer and senior captain. She served two years on the school’s Student-Athletes Advisory Committee and worked special events for the department of Physical Education, Recreation and Athletics.

The Charles River Masters Swim Club member served as social chair for the club (formerly Cambridge Masters at Harvard University) for more than 12 years. Downing coordinated social events, post-meet functions, and organized the annual coaches' gifts. She joined the New England Masters Board of Directors as Swim Coordinator in December 2018.

Mina Elnaccash: 2023 Frank Wuest Open Water Award

Each summer, New England plays host to a bevy of beautiful open water swimming events. And a growing number of them are organized by the Massachusetts Open Water Swimming Association, an all-volunteer non-profit organization based in Waltham, Massachusetts. 

New England Masters member and certified USMS Level 2 Coach and USMS Adult Learn-to-Swim Instructor Mina Elnaccash has been an integral force in the group’s expansion over the past several years. Her efforts began in 2017 when she agreed to handle boat matching for the annual Boston Light Swim. That thankless undertaking requires attention to detail, superlative project management skills, and endless patience to recruit local boaters and pair them with anxious swimmers preparing to tackle the swim of their lives. 

Elnaccash, who was a pool swimmer until 2008 when she first took the open water plunge at the Wild Fish 1-mile swim in Salem, capably managed the boat matching process for several years. In 2021, she was promoted to Race Director of the oldest open water event still staged in America. She also assumed the Secretary role on the MOWSA board, and her leadership has helped the organization grow in new directions by adding several events that provide an on-ramp for new open water swimmers looking to go longer.

Her focus on MOWSA’s mission to provide more safe open water swimming opportunities in Massachusetts, regardless of economic status and physical ability, has been inspiring to the rest of the team and galvanized their commitment to the cause. And, her focus on participant satisfaction has raised the bar in all of MOWSA’s events; the MOWSA swag game is strong these days, thanks to Elnaccash. 

An avid open water swimmer herself, Elnaccash has participated in numerous open water swims including:

• The 2011 Kingdom Swim in Lake Memphremagog, Vermont (6 miles)

• The length of Lake Willoughby in 2013 (5 miles)

• The 2016 Kingdom Swim, a USMS National Championship event (10 miles) 

• Three stages of the 2018 SCAR Swim Challenge in Arizona (Saguaro Lake, 13.3 kilometers; Canyon Lake, 14.1 kilometers; Roosevelt Lake 10 kilometers)

• The 2018 Swim the Suck 10K race in the Tennessee River in Chattanooga

A software product manager in educational technology by day, Elnaccash is working on her swimming "comeback" after a shoulder injury. She daydreams about her next marathon open water DNFs (somehow her favorite swims!) and wonders if "comeback" is really the right word after never being away from the water – just having experienced more swims from the boat. For many swimmers in New England and beyond, Elnaccash’s dedicated dry-side volunteerism and passion for providing opportunities to others has made their open water dreams come true. 

Amanda Smith Dakowicz: 2022 Frank Wuest Open Water Award

Great Bay Masters Swimming member Amanda Smith Dakowicz embodies the best of what it means to be an open water swimmer. The Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based swimmer and triathlete has made a substantial contribution to open water both as an athlete and as a supporter of others aiming to achieve big things in the sport.

In 2022, Smith Dakowicz completed a 9.22-kilometer clockwise circumnavigation of the Isles of Shoals in the Gulf of Maine in 3 hours, 37 minutes, 44 seconds. A top triathlete, she often swims in a wetsuit and completed this event while wearing a wetsuit, booties, and two caps to ward off Maine’s frigid chill. The swim was ratified by the World Open Water Swimming Association.

Smith Dakowicz has also completed the 25-kilometer Border Buster in Lake Memphremagog in 2021 and the 12-mile Swim with a Mission in Newfound Lake, New Hampshire. 

Always ready to give back, Smith Dakowicz acted as observer for Alyssa Langlais’ 12-kilometer Boon Island to Long Sands Beach, York, swim on July 17, 2021. It was the first documented swim on that course and was ratified by the Marathon Swimmers Federation thanks to Smith Dakowicz’s diligent documentation.

She is also a certified Adult Learn-to-Swim instructor and has helped out coaching at open water swimming clinics, volunteered at races, and served as a kayaker for several area open water events. 

As one admirer notes, “whether it’s a 4 a.m. wake-up call or needing a pep talk 8 miles into a training swim, Amanda has been there to pick me up and keep me motivated. Amanda has done this not just for me, but for so many on the Seacoast, around New England, the country, and even the world. She will go out of her way traveling in a foreign country to find an open water swimming meetup group and form friendships there. And, she inspires swimmers everywhere she goes. She’s a cheerleader at every level, whether it’s a swim practice or a national level event.”

Smith Dakowicz played water polo at Cornell University and coaches the Portsmouth High School swim team.