How to spot a rip current

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So you want to know how to spot a rip? Well rip currents are a fundamental and unavoidable force in surfing; if you have waves pushing water into the beach, then you’ll have a rip current sucking water back out to sea again.

Rip currents are a fact or surfing. Prior knowledge goes a long way.

Spotting a rip

Rips are essentially deeper channels in the sea bed and behave a lot like rivers, so once you know what to look for, spotting them isn’t difficult. The most common place to find a rip is against a groyne, pier, headland or other large feature. When checking out a beach for the first time, look for these type of features and then observe the way the water behaves around them. You’ll notice the following:

– The water is more choppy

– The water is visibly flowing out to sea

– The water can be discoloured from picking up sediment and sand

– Waves aren’t breaking as it’s too deep

Check the rip current flowing out to sea in the foreground. Note: no waves breaking there!

Using a rip

So since waves don’t break in rip currents, and the water is flowing out to sea, this does make them handy conveyor belts for confident surfers to use to quickly ‘get out the back’ without having to paddle through the impact zone. To use a rip, a surfer would jump in at the shore, paddle out in the choppy water of the current, and as they draw level with the line-up where other surfers are sitting, exit the rip by paddling across it.

A surfer could then catch a wave, ride it to the end, and then paddle back into the rip to circle out to the line-up again without ever needing to duck dive.

This surfer was able to paddle out back easily despite the size of the breaking surf

Rip hazards

For all their convenience, rips are one of the most hazardous features on the beach. Because waves typically don’t break in the deeper water of a rip, unwary water users can mistake them for being safer than sections of the beach with breaking surf. Breaking surf however will push a tired swimmer back to the shore, whereas a rip current will just take them out to sea. Areas of breaking surf may be shallow enough to stand up in, whereas a rip a few meters along the beach will invariably be too deep to stand in, compounding any fatigue a swimmer is already dealing with.

A lone surfer using a rip current at Fistral Beach. Notice how far out to sea it runs.

Escaping a rip

Escaping a rip is much like getting out of a river if you fell in off a bridge. As the current sweeps you downstream, you wouldn’t turn round to face it and try to swim upstream back towards the bridge, no, you’d angle across the river and strike out for the nearest bank. It’s the same in the ocean. If you find yourself in a choppy no wave zone being drawn out to sea, angle your board across it and paddle parallel to the shore, towards an area of breaking surf.

– Keep calm, and paddle with steady, long strokes. Panic uses energy.

– Always stay on your board, it is your life raft and visual aid to people spotting you.

– Call for help if you feel you are struggling.

Stand-up paddlers use a deep water channel. Notice how much choppier the water is compared to the breaking wave face.

The best advice

When you turn up to surf, watch the water for ten minutes. This will give enough time for you to see a couple of sets breaking, and to spot the tell-tale signs of a rip. Talk to lifeguards and other surfers for some local knowledge, stay cool and enjoy your deeper understanding of the ocean.

 

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One thought on “How to spot a rip current”

  1. Paul Tucker says:

    This is very good advice, I have been caught in a RIP current once, I was wearing a colourful wet suit for visibility, a sports life jacket and a plb1 as as an aditional safety feature, whilst I did not panic because I followed the advice in this article I still became very tired quickly so beware and follow the advice P

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