How to identify a rip - surf safety with Surf & Sun

14 December, 2015

how to identify a rip surf lesson

Surfing is a water sport that can be dangerous if you don’t have the proper knowledge about waves. However, the fun and being stoked in the playful waves is what makes this sport appealing to most enthusiasts.

Identifying a rip is an important skill to have when you want to avoid the surfing hazards. What Surf and Sun will provide you with is the knowledge on how to avoid dangerous rip curls which are hazardous even to the most seasoned surfer. This video will be sharing important tips that will help you identify a rip curl. Watch the video; you can even take notes on some important takeaways that you can practice yourself once you’re out in the water.

00:00:15 - Today’s tip of the week with Surf and Sun

Welcome to today’s tip of the week with Surf and Sun. Today we’re going to talk about rips and rip current.

00:00:20 - How to identify a Rip

Traditionally rip current, you identify them by seeing an area, behind us as you can see down here, there’ll be an area where there’s no waves breaking, you can see lots of ripples at top of the ocean surface and generally you can see a bit of a browny area as well. Especially on the sandy beaches when the water is pulling out oppose the sand out rip as well.

00:00:40 - Three things to look for

So the three things to look for: no waves breaking the area, also for the sand getting pulled out in the rip current, and there’s a lot of ripples on the ocean surface. That’s the 3 ways to identify a rip.

00:00:51 - Looking for rips

When you’re looking for rips, they are great and can be good for assistance for confident surfers to get them back out to the waves, but for those people who are just swimming or they are not confident surfers, it can get you in a bit of trouble.

00:01:24 - Middleton Bay

As you can see today we are at Middleton Bay, and we’ve got a rip heading out from the current. In here, you can see the area where there is no waves breaking which takes the surfers back out to the sea.

There are 3 main things to look out for when identifying a rip which are:

  • Brown water from the sand being pulled out in the rip
  • Lines of bubbles heading out to sea on the surface
  • No waves - as the water is deeper where the rip is stopping the waves from breaking

The other thing to look out for is ripples on the surface.

Keep safe in the surf with instruction during one of our learn to surf lessons Middleton or Moana.

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