Skinny Dippers Go for World Record in Palm Springs
Thursday, Jan 7, 2010 | Updated 2:43 PM PST
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More than 360 naked people squeezed into three pools at a Palm Springs nudist resort Saturday in an effort set a Guinness world record.
The Desert Sun Resort at 1533 N. Chaparral Road had 368 people skinny-dipping Saturday at noon, general manager Michael Patrick Williams said. Thousands of other naked people across the country and in Canada were going to take the plunge at the same time, Williams said.
There was no doubt that a record would be set because Guinness just created the category, said resort owner Elizabeth Young. The results won't be known until the numbers are reported to Guinness and verified, Williams said.
"Skinny-dipping is as American as apple pie," Williams said after Saturday's event. "Benjamin Franklin did it. Huck Finn did it. It's an American tradition in real life and literature and movies. It's good, clean fun."
The world record attempt sponsored by the American Association of Nude Recreation. All day-pass proceeds at the desert resort Saturday went to the Skin Cancer Research Foundation, Williams said.
The Desert Sun Resort, which bills itself as the largest and newest nudist resort in the nation, is a "family-friendly" facility with strict conduct rules, Young said.
Guinness, Dublin-based makers of a dark Irish stout for 250 years, began tracking world records and publishing them in book form in 1955. The brewer's record-keeping has outstripped the fame of its stout in many circles.
