Icce is sharp, you will like having the boots during and aftter the event for sure! I don't think your ability to swim is deminished much with shoes/boots, I took advanced life saving a number of years ago, and one of the things that was stressed was to keep your clothes on for boyancey, now this was in relation to open water, since you are not swiming a long distance I cant see how taking your boots off could be of any value.