Originally posted by Tom:

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Now do it while wearing 20-40kg of armor and weapons.

Now do it while wearing nothing at all, for some reason equipment does not really impact swimming ability.

It does, actually, because your movement penalties (or bonuses) affect stamina drain of movement actions like swimming. :)

It would be interesting if the weight of your inventory in itself impacted swimming, but it'd probably make waterfronts way dangerous in many situations and difficult to balance out.