Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aromasin | Hacker News Reader

I surf a lot, and I've lost count of the amount of times I've had to save people from a riptide. They're always completely exhausted, barely keeping head above water, and minutes from getting pulled out to sea with no energy left to swim around the rip and back to shore. I pulled out a couple on deaths door on their honeymoon just a couple weeks ago - that could have crippled their families. It's frustrating the lack of awareness people have around the sea. Unless you know the shore you're swimming on intimately, or the sea is flat with no swell, there's no guarantee you'll be able to fight the sea if you're further out than up to your waist in water.

View on HN

Around here flat sea is the killer as it usually is a sign of strong undercurrents. To the uninitiated it simply looks more calm. It can pull you down for real.

If you just float to open sea (typical tourist in a dingy or paddle board) you might need to get a "fun" helicopter ride from the friendly sea rescue services. Most people tend not to know that if the emergency is due to gross stupidity they will be billed afterwards (they are kind - so that is rare). Their rates are however significantly higher than regular tour operators.

So I do agree the lack of awareness is frustrating. If the locals stop swimming you should too.

But... Send me down under to Australia.and I would probably die in 5 minutes. Everything seems to be dangerous and/or poisonous there.

We are all to some degree "tourists" at some point in time with all that entails.

On the other side as surfer I just love riptides. We call them the lift. It just takes us out to the surf for free.

You may not fight it, you must use it and step out to the side.

Why are riptides safe for surfers? Is it because you can just take a break on your surfboard and float? I would think getting dragged out to sea on a surfboard would still be dangerous...

Not OP, but my impression from reading the literature is that the problem with rip currents is that people either exhaust themselves fighting the current, and/or get pulled out beyond their ability to swim back.

The typical distance a rip current will pull people out is about 100m. Given that about 50% of the US population can't swim functionally at all, this can be very dangerous. However, it depends — 100m is not very much for an experienced open water swimmer, who might be used to swimming 1500-3000m routinely.

Most updated recommendations suggest people should ride the current until it stops and then signal for help and/or swim away from the current. This is to avoid exhaustion and because research indicates rip currents can go in different patterns.

If you know what you're doing and can swim that distance, it's not that dangerous. Experienced surfers would fall in this category, as they're used to navigating shore currents.

Riptides are only dangerous for beginners who don't know how they work. It's a narrow stream outwards, about 3-4m wide. Like a street. At your surf you get out by paddling parallel to the beach just a few strokes. Beginners fight the rip, but you just need to step out. For surfers it's a dream

Even without the board, it's just understanding the water, and knowing all the tricks for swimming in the surf.

Like you hear people become exhausted and drown, when it is just so easy to relax and float around, even with waves washing over you.

Great example. I used to love rip currents as a youngin. Just swim parallel and body surf back to shore. Sometimes I used to just swim into them for the workout and amusement. But I got older and it had been about a decade since I had ventured out into the ocean -- was out body surfing for about 20 mins before I got caught in a fairly normal riptide and ran out of energy really fast. Would have been really unfortunate if I hadn't been in the same situation hundreds of times before. I was panicked and debated yelling for help lol.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com