Featured Image via weather.gov
By: Amanda Kelley
What moves faster than an Olympic swimmer, is completely silent and nearly invisible, and is responsible for over 100 fatalities each year?
The answer is a rip current, and if you guessed incorrectly, brush up on your water safety knowledge with us. Rip currents are powerful, channeled currents of water flowing away from shore. They flow out to sea from the shoreline, through the surf zone, and past the line of breaking waves.
Rip currents can occur at any beach that has the wind or surf energy to produce waves – even the Great Lakes have experienced severe rips.
Rip currents are tough to spot if you don’t know what you’re looking for, and they are so commonplace at beaches around the country that they account for 80% of rescues performed by surf beach lifeguards.
Photo Credit: Great Lakes Gazette
It’s an age-old adage repeated by many water safety experts: If you ever find yourself caught in a rip current DON’T try to fight against it. Instead, move out of the current by swimming parallel to shore.
However, a new school of thought on rip current survival is currently being explored by Dr. Jamie MacMahan of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Califorina.
While survival instinct calls us to action, MacMahan proposes that if you are caught in a rip current, it is worth a try to just relax and float for a while.
“It’s a long time – maybe three minutes – you’re generally going to float back to the beach,” said MacMahan.
It may seem counterintuitive to do “nothing,” but 80 to 90 percent of rips MacMahan has studied flow in huge circles. They flow from the shallows, out through the breakers and back again, every few minutes.
If a swimmer is trapped in a circulating rip, he or she has no way of knowing which way the current is flowing. By swimming parallel to the shore, the swimmer has a 50/50 chance of paddling against the deadly current. Most rip current fatalities occur in this manner: the swimmer become exhausted trying to fight the current, and subsequently drowns, unable to stay afloat.
MacMahan proposes that the peril of this exhaustion can be avoided by “going with the flow” of the current, and letting yourself drift in the circulating waters that would return you to shore.
Photo Credit: Source
His findings are still under scrutiny some six years after the initial publication of his research, and many water safety authorities such as the U.S. Lifeguard Association are highly skeptical of the “relax and float” tactic.
On the other side of the world, Australia has incorporated MacMahan’s research into their beach safety campaigns to update their message.
Because of the complex and dynamic nature of rip currents, there is no single end-all survival strategy if you are trapped in one. The Aussies have taken note and adapted a combination of the old and new strategies. If you’re a weak swimmer, stay afloat and signal for help, if you’re a strong swimmer, attempt to escape by swimming parallel to shore.
Although the scientific community has found no flaws in MacMahans research process, his findings are still met with doubt in the realm of policy.
Although it appears unlikely that you’ll see those “break the grip of the rip” signs replaced with “relax and float on” signs any time soon, it certainly is a good practice to keep your head and remain calm in any survival scenario.
Make sure you and all your pals know how to identify rip currents as well! It could save your life, so learn about how, here.