Largest swimming pool-world record set by San
Alfonso pool
[Nov 9]San Alfonso del Mar,Chile--A one kilometre long swimming
pool in Chile has set the world record for the world'slargest outdoor swimming pool.
The
man-made salt water lagoon at San
Alfonso del Mar resort in Algarrobo, Chile, was completed
late last year and has been drawing large crowds ever since. (enlarge
photo)
Situated on the Chilean coast, it provides a spectacular
play area of seemingly endless crystal-clear blue water.
The
lagoon employs cutting-edge technology that allows it to "harvest,
filter and permanently recirculate ocean water", according to biochemist
and businessman Fernando Fischmann, who heads Crystal Lagoons Corporation,
the company that designed the mammoth pool.
"This advance provides something that until now was
not technically possible - the generation of monumental masses of
water in a crystalline state to provide a beach life environment
and aquatic sports at the top level," he says.
Fischmann says companies are keen to take advantage
of the way lagoons form "impressive artificial paradises, even in
inhospitable areas".
The San Alfonso pool:
* Is 8 hectares in surface area or the
equivalent of 6,000 standard-size 8-metre-long swimming pools.
* It easily dwarfs the next biggest pool
- the Orthlieb in Casablanca, Morocco - which measures 150m x 100m.
* The lagoon's water temperature in summer
is 26C, nine degrees warmer than the ocean it sits alongside.
* Its waters are transparent to a depth
of 35 metres.
* It cost approximately US$3.5 million
to build and
the maintenance cost is low, the equivalent of 1/4 of a golf course
(18 holes) only!
* The pool fills itself with
250,000 cubic meters of water from the Pacific ("which filters itself")