RealSurf Surfers' Forum

Yep, just read about it. Seems pretty serious, hope the young bloke recovers.

Did it happen on dark?

Drailed wrote:Did it happen on dark?

7pm...

"was surfing about 100m out to sea on the northern end of the beach — not far from recent sightings of large white pointers — when he was attacked about 7pm."
Reckon quite a few will be spooked about this. Bombo is a great surfing spot too.

Butts wrote:"was surfing about 100m out to sea on the northern end of the beach — not far from recent sightings of large white pointers — when he was attacked about 7pm."
Reckon quite a few will be spooked about this. Bombo is a great surfing spot too.

Just spoke to a couple of people who were there - sounded horrible. There were still twenty guys out - surf was good. But you are 100% right - it will spook many around the region. Think i'll avoid Bombo till summer and the NE winds...

Drailed wrote:Did it happen on dark?

Interestingly, because I'm sure there will be (not here but elsewhere) comments about how stupid it is to surf at dark and how he brought it upon himself etc etc, if you look at the list of fatal shark attacks in Australia, very few occurred at dusk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_f ... _Australia

Now obviously this is just fatal attacks, not all attacks.

There are some papers that look at all types of attacks a bit more closely - in particular see the para headed 'temporal patterns' at page 6 (page number 749) of this study http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_f ... F10181.pdf. Dusk and dawn are, in percentage terms (attacks against hours covered), safer than morning and afternoon

Although, whether safer in terms of people in the water vs attack numbers is not clear - given that fewer people will be in the water at these times, perhaps the risk is slightly higher? Then again, perhaps having lots of people in the water scares the sharks away, so morning and afternoon are actually more risky, because there are more attacks even though many sharks are scared away?

There is also the study reported here http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-26/f ... ks/4393204 (although this one has such a low number of attacks studied that the percentages aren't that reliable)

Anyway, the whole 'dusk/dawn' thing isn't as clear cut as some people claim or seem to believe.

That said, surfing is clearly the most dangerous activity in terms of attacks.

Seems that's the case, no definitive evidence to support the theory of the dawn/dusk thing.
Some boffin on the radio yesty arvo dismissed it.
After all, there's scores and scores of surfers out at both times all around our coastline, and if so, attack numbers would reflect that it had currency.

The Ol' mate who I've reconnected with recently from our youth lives near The Farm, his son's been competing in board rider comps with Matt for years - they're good mates. Needless to say, but he's fairly rattled.
My thoughts and best wishes go out to him for a decent recovery.
Somewhat ironic, but one of the first peeps I noticed walking along the promenade this morning was the navy diver who got attacked a few years ago. Never seen him before at Bondi.

Stats wise, regardless of surfer numbers, the majority of swimmers are between 10 and 3.
Based on pretty average estimated figures at least.

There have been sightings for a while locally. Usual beach was closed a few weeks ago, and some lucky blokes were on a reef when the aerial patrol started circling them. They paddled in pretty quick.



Can't believe no ones been hit at the break wall/island

/\ The five islands would surely be pretty fkn sharky

Beerfan wrote:There have been sightings for a while locally. Usual beach was closed a few weeks ago, and some lucky blokes were on a reef when the aerial patrol started circling them. They paddled in pretty quick.



Can't believe no ones been hit at the break wall/island

yep - this amazes me also. Great waves there - but about the sharkiest spot i've surfed down here...

Hatchnam wrote:/\ The five islands would surely be pretty fkn sharky

for sure! Never surfed it for that reason. There have been some waves the last few days. 3-4ft offshore all day out the farm yesterday and 10-15 out. I wasn't surprised.

Was only 15 out coz it was 3-4'.








I'd include myself in that haha. Had a look further north and was bigger than expected, the reef in the corner was breaking. Plenty out.

Some good news. Young bloke reported to have come through a 9 hour surgery. Photo of him and his family/friends in newspaper celebrating his birthday in hospital.

Sweet