Yukon Graylings are filling up the swimming pool about as fast as the masters swim club can keep up.

Entering its third season, the swim team for people 18 and up has more than two dozen members signed up and a waitlist with about 12 more ready to jump in if there’s space.

Starting Sunday, president Victoria Ryan has confirmed there will be six lanes available to the club, the maximum they’re allowed to rent. Two lanes must always be available for public lane swim.

The club is also looking to expand to Tuesday and Thursday morning practices for those training twice a week to help keep lane numbers small.

Four years ago, the masters swim program was still a division of the Glacier Bears swim team, a youth-focused group.

Ryan and a small group of like-minded swimmers decided to break off and form their own club.

At the national and provincial/territorial level, masters swimming has its own sport governing bodies. The Graylings are part of the Masters Swimming Association of B.C.

In 2014 the Graylings swim club was born.

Ryan, who had grown up swimming competitively in Sweden before moving to the U.S. for school and then to Vancouver for her masters, had kept swimming. With her experience doing masters swimming on the lower mainland, she knew the potential a club in Whitehorse could have.

“We thought we’ll just start it out really low key, rent a couple of lanes once or twice a week and we’ll just see who wants to swim with us,” she said.

In the club’s first year, there were five or six swimmers. They rented two lanes on Sunday and were self-coached with a collective swimming workout.

They thought they might be able to attract more swimmers in the second year if there was a coach on deck.

Paralympic champion Stephanie Dixon came on board as the head coach and the club grew even more.

With the addition of a coach on the deck at practices, Ryan said the group has attracted more novice swimmers, who perhaps haven’t swam a lot or were involved in competitive teams in their youth. She estimates about a third of the group is also training for triathlons.

The group aspect of the team makes workouts more fun.

“It’s easier to train hard and motivate yourself when you’re in a group,” she said.

Last year she recalls one swimmer who couldn’t believe they’d completed 2.5 kilometres in a practice.

“They go, ‘What? I swam 2,500m? I could never ever do that if I went to the pool myself.’”

Back when the club still had a handful of members and was coachless, Ryan told the Star that she saw in the club an ability to grow to 25 swimmers in the future.

They’ve surpassed that this year and Ryan is interested in continuing the growth, while still keeping swim practices enjoyable for the athletes.

“I don’t see why we can’t get even bigger,” she said. “There are some big masters teams in small towns down south, so even though Whitehorse isn’t the biggest city in itself, I still think it can get bigger.”

One area of growth she sees is open water practices once the water thaws next May.

She’d also like to see a community grow around the club. Brunches after Sunday morning practices, barbecues and holiday parties.

“It’s a huge social aspect,” she said. “There’s so much more to it than swimming up and down in the pool.”