How to spot a rip

There are about 17,000 rips at beaches around Australia on any given day. Chances are that – unless you’re a skilled surf lifesaver or an extremely experienced surfer – you’d prefer not to be dicing with them.

Yet Australians do: 4.2 million aged between 16 and 69 have been caught in a rip at least once in their lives.

The results can be anything from frightening to fatal.

The statistics also show that men are more likely than women to come to grief in the surf – most people who drowned in rips in 2016 and 2017 were men (88 per cent). Of the 21 drownings in the first month of this summer, 20 were men.

It seems that some of us are more bullish about our ability to spot rips than we should be. Of the 10 per cent of people who told Surf Life Saving Australia in 2017 they were very confident they could spot a rip, only 44 per cent actually could when put to the test.

In a previous survey, only one in three got it right.

We unfurl our towels and dash out into the waves over more than 300 million visits every summer, says Surf Life Saving Australia.

But this summer, lifesavers are on edge.

For every tragic drowning, there are many, many more rescues. From the same group of three men who died near Coffs Harbour, for example, three teenagers – two girls and a boy – were pulled alive from the surf.

Stop and think before you take the plunge, is the message from lifesavers. “Take a few moments to just check where you are,” says Surf Life Saving Australia's Shane Daw. “Check if there are rips, look for other hazards such as large waves or rocks, and have a plan.

“Always find a patrolled beach because the red and yellow flags mark the safest place to swim.

“Simply stopping to take two to three minutes could save your life.”

Rips are not obvious to the untrained eye. Experienced surfers and swimmers will often take time and find high ground to look down on the surf zone – the area between the shore and the breaking waves furthest out – to suss out the flow of currents. The ocean can look like a mess and some of the telltale signs of rips can be very subtle. But it’s still worth pausing and assessing the waves before you jump in.

Here’s what to look out for:

Deeper, darker coloured water

Once waves hit the shore they have to go somewhere. The huge force of the water rushing back out to sea carves channels between shallower areas of sand.

Fewer breaking waves

The rip areas where water is on its way out – via the deeper channels – won’t have as many incoming breaking waves as the areas where the white-foam-tipped waves are cresting and breaking over sand.

A rippled surface surrounded by still water

Various currents heading in different directions push against one another, creating a ripple effect.

Seaweed, sediment and churning, sandy clouds floating towards the back of the waves

This is evidence that sand from the shallows is being dragged out to the deep by currents.

You may have heard of several rips at Bondi beach, including one known as the Backpackers’ Express. Lifesavers stress that expecting consistency in the position of rips – and giving them names – can make beachgoers complacent.

The Bondi surf is more complicated. The position of rips will be different depending on the weather, the size of the surf and a range of other variables on any given day. The lifespan of a rip is anything from seconds – as with flash rips – to years, as with topographical rips near jetties and rocky outcrops. Which is why Bondi lifesavers end up rescuing not dozens but hundreds of swimmers from rips every summer.