Drafting is a technique that’s well understood in race car driving and cycling. In swimming, the effect can be just as big because water is 800x more dense than air and there’s significantly more resistance in the water than on land. Open water swimming is a fun and exciting sport. One of the reasons it is very different from pool swimming is the concept of drafting. This is where you align yourself with another swimmer(s) to reduce the overall effect of drag due to exploiting the lead swimmer’s slipstream.