How to run action on tapping object as opposed to releasing tap? - swift2

Question

Here is a simplified scenekit default scene with the ship. Tap the ship, release, and the ship spins. How do you modify program so that when you tap the ship, the action starts? No worry about releasing or holding tap.
class GameViewController: UIViewController {
override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad()
let scene = SCNScene(named: "art.scnassets/ship.scn")!
let cameraNode = SCNNode()
cameraNode.camera = SCNCamera()
scene.rootNode.addChildNode(cameraNode)
cameraNode.position = SCNVector3(x: 0, y: 0, z: 15)
let lightNode = SCNNode()
lightNode.light = SCNLight()
lightNode.light!.type = SCNLightTypeOmni
lightNode.position = SCNVector3(x: 0, y: 10, z: 10)
scene.rootNode.addChildNode(lightNode)
let ambientLightNode = SCNNode()
ambientLightNode.light = SCNLight()
ambientLightNode.light!.type = SCNLightTypeAmbient
ambientLightNode.light!.color = UIColor.darkGrayColor()
scene.rootNode.addChildNode(ambientLightNode)
let scnView = self.view as! SCNView
scnView.scene = scene
scnView.allowsCameraControl = true
scnView.showsStatistics = true
scnView.backgroundColor = UIColor.blackColor()
let tapGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: "handleTap:")
scnView.addGestureRecognizer(tapGesture)
}
func handleTap(gestureRecognize: UIGestureRecognizer) {
let scnView = self.view as! SCNView
// the ship
let ship = scnView.scene!.rootNode.childNodeWithName("ship", recursively: true)!
// the action
let rotateY = SCNAction.repeatActionForever(SCNAction.rotateByX(0, y: 2, z: 0, duration: 1))
let point = gestureRecognize.locationInView(scnView)
let hitResults = scnView.hitTest(point, options: nil)
if hitResults.count > 0 {
let result: AnyObject! = hitResults[0]
// the call
if result.node!.name!.hasPrefix("ship") {
ship.runAction(rotateY)
}
}
}
override func shouldAutorotate() -> Bool { return true }
override func prefersStatusBarHidden() -> Bool { return true }
override func supportedInterfaceOrientations() -> UIInterfaceOrientationMask {
if UIDevice.currentDevice().userInterfaceIdiom == .Phone { return .AllButUpsideDown }
else { return .All }
}
override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() { super.didReceiveMemoryWarning() }
}

Answer 1

A gesture recognizer recognizes an entire gesture. For a tap that happens when the touch begin and touch end events happen in close proximity. The built in recognizer will only fire once the "tap gesture" is complete and both events are complete.
If you want different behavior on the Touch Begin or Touch End, you will have to handle the low-level events yourself. To do this you can either create your own, custom UIGestureRecognizeror you can create a custom UIView and use the methods in UIResponder like
touchesBegan(_:withEvent:)
Please see the Event Handling Guide for iOS