Page 14 of 15

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2017 4:25 pm
by muggins
:roll:

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 1:34 am
by Nick Carroll
OK I followed up on the shark shield on skis bit with the guy who runs the J-Bay ski safety program. He says they were given shark shields and fitted them to the skis as well as they could, but rapidly found they couldn't stand up to the heavy wear and tear that a ski experiences - launching through surf, driving fast, all that. The ss's would just tear off and dangle from their mounts and the drivers would have to grab 'em and stow them on the ski. So nup, no shark shields on the skis involved in the J-Bay event's shark episodes. He reckons they did have the pod versions on board but they weren't activated.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 8:02 am
by the prawn
Any talk of arming the drones with shark-homing torpedoes?

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 11:34 am
by Hollowed out
Thanks Nick,
Hey real pity that did not give us a result either way (as we really could do with some clear evidence that SS makes any difference) but have to say fitting a surfboard unit to the hull of a ski is just basically a waste of time because the obvious happened. Not rocket science that one.
If SS were confident that their products work they should have used the opportunity to fit and use (turn on) one of the more powerful units on those skis or boats that can't be used on a board because of risk of shock.
so we move along and none the wiser as to the effectiveness of SS, which a skeptic could imply as being very convienient for SS.

I assume not one of the competitors used one (otherwise we surely would have heard) and next investigation job while you are there is to see how many local use/believe in SS. What about water photogs? JBay has gotta be the best testing ground and with drones to verify the actual effectiveness.

Don't just sit there, get to work and earn those stripes as a first rate investigative journalist.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 12:27 pm
by carvin marvin
Hollowed out wrote:
Wed Jul 26, 2017 11:34 am
Thanks Nick,
Hey real pity that did not give us a result either way (as we really could do with some clear evidence that SS makes any difference) but have to say fitting a surfboard unit to the hull of a ski is just basically a waste of time because the obvious happened. Not rocket science that one.
If SS were confident that their products work they should have used the opportunity to fit and use (turn on) one of the more powerful units on those skis or boats that can't be used on a board because of risk of shock.
so we move along and none the wiser as to the effectiveness of SS, which a skeptic could imply as being very convienient for SS.

I assume not one of the competitors used one (otherwise we surely would have heard) and next investigation job while you are there is to see how many local use/believe in SS. What about water photogs? JBay has gotta be the best testing ground and with drones to verify the actual effectiveness.

Don't just sit there, get to work and earn those stripes as a first rate investigative journalist.
A good experiment at J bay would be to connect a shark shield to a drone and fly low over the shark with the antennae dragging in the water.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 2:53 pm
by The Mighty Sunbird
Or fit one to a shark and see what happens

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 6:32 pm
by Nick Carroll
The surfers I saw and talked with at J-Bay are not particularly head spun by sharks. They're all very aware of the great white and they all have stories. Quite a few have a black and white striped leash and a couple have similar striping on the undersides of their boards, the like of which you've probably seen in West Oz. Hardly any, including the guys who live and surf around Cape Town, bother with electronic devices. They don't seem fatalistic about it so much as realistic; they know the sharks are out there but they seem to feel the movements of the sharks are predictable and avoidable in a surfing context. The fact is there are nowhere near as many surfers in South Africa as there are here in Oz; one person with a good handle on demographics etc suggested around 30,000 regular surfers, i.e. people who surf every week. I think that might be an upper estimate.

No competitor at J-Bay used any kind of shark repellent device.

carving marvin I think that would not be a good experiment at all, the situation would be utterly artificial - you wouldn't know if it was the drone or the shark shield that caused the shark to behave differently.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:07 pm
by steve shearer
The best science I can find seems to point to stable or declining numbers of whites in South Africa, while it seems we have the opposite here in Oz.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:08 pm
by steve shearer
IE, it's not the risk profile per se that "spins heads", it's the change and rate of change of the risk profile that is a head fcuker.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:39 pm
by Cranked
Fatal shark attacks in SA from 2000 are about one a year, not too different from Oz

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:40 pm
by steve shearer
you gotta dig a bit deeper into those stats to find anything meaningful though.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 8:00 pm
by Cranked
Yep, just an answer to a sudden question that entered my mind.

And in roughly perusing the data it seemed that fatalities in SA were fairly consistent over recent decades but in oz there were very few 20-40 years ago but we've quickly caught up. Seems reasonable that the double whammy of protecting the great white's prey species (seals and whales) and then later, the sharks themselves has been very effective in increasing the human death rate. We will probably see a doubling in human fatalities (with some ups and downs) every 10 years or so I reckon.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 8:11 pm
by steve shearer
I very much doubt that....I don't think human beings will turn out to be that accommodating of such a high level of predation.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 8:27 pm
by Hollowed out
Nick Carroll wrote:
Wed Jul 26, 2017 6:32 pm
The surfers I saw and talked with at J-Bay are not particularly head spun by sharks. They're all very aware of the great white and they all have stories. Quite a few have a black and white striped leash and a couple have similar striping on the undersides of their boards, the like of which you've probably seen in West Oz. Hardly any, including the guys who live and surf around Cape Town, bother with electronic devices. They don't seem fatalistic about it so much as realistic; they know the sharks are out there but they seem to feel the movements of the sharks are predictable and avoidable in a surfing context. The fact is there are nowhere near as many surfers in South Africa as there are here in Oz; one person with a good handle on demographics etc suggested around 30,000 regular surfers, i.e. people who surf every week. I think that might be an upper estimate.

No competitor at J-Bay used any kind of shark repellent device.

carving marvin I think that would not be a good experiment at all, the situation would be utterly artificial - you wouldn't know if it was the drone or the shark shield that caused the shark to behave differently.
great work Nick (Walkey award in the mail), this sort of stuff provides background that is relevant to what appears to be a particular 'attitude' that seems to be present at JBay which as we well know is considered a high shark activity surf zone. I wonder how much different that might be had Mick got bit or if last weeks GW had not been so 'chilled' when passing through.
So IMHO we are no more enlightened on GW behaviour or risk of attack than before and certainly there seems no evidence that wearing a SS makes any difference.
Does anyone ever use drones at JBay to patrol the lineup or was that just a one off for the contest? It would be interesting if any local guys using drones regularly have captured good shark activity footage or close calls with surfers.If this stuff needs to be correlated to build a knowledge base.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 9:16 pm
by Cranked
steve shearer wrote:
Wed Jul 26, 2017 8:11 pm
I very much doubt that....I don't think human beings will turn out to be that accommodating of such a high level of predation.
They seem very accommodating at the moment. Sure there'll be a bit of kerfuffle as the fatality rates go up but then there will be a huge rally of 60,000 people in Byron pointing out that its the sharks domain and as they are an apex predator and everything is connected then the world's ecology will likely collapse if any are killed. You know, like a butterfly dies and the world ends.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2017 6:13 am
by Rustt
steve shearer wrote:
Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:07 pm
The best science I can find seems to point to stable or declining numbers of whites in South Africa, while it seems we have the opposite here in Oz.
You talking sharks or people? :lol:

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2017 9:19 am
by Nick Carroll
Hollowed out wrote:
Wed Jul 26, 2017 8:27 pm
Does anyone ever use drones at JBay to patrol the lineup or was that just a one off for the contest? It would be interesting if any local guys using drones regularly have captured good shark activity footage or close calls with surfers.If this stuff needs to be correlated to build a knowledge base.
I think it was just a one-off for the contest. The drone was there as part of the WSL CT machine, which is basically like a large movie set - a completely unusual event for a town like that. As mentioned, there aren't nearly as many surfers in South Africa as there are here in Australia, thus there is a corresponding lower level of activity around the sport. J-Bay itself for a surf spot of such renown - or maybe just by Australian standards - is remarkably uncrowded, there's more people walking on the beach than there are in the water, and there's not a whole lot of camera-people. I didn't see a drone during the days after the event or during any of the free surfs around the event. I did see three or four water photogs during those free surfs but they weren't using anti shark devices of any kind. They were all visiting from other parts of the country and were there specifically for the event.

There was an attack at J-Bay on a surfer a number of years ago that was captured by an amateur videographer from the beach but it's pretty hard to see what's happening.

Re: J-Bay Pro 2017

Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2017 9:33 am
by foamy
I thought the drone was under-utilised at J-Bay. Long point rides are where tracking drones often give the best perspective. Otherwise you are chopping between cameras and/or filming someone disappearing into the distance.