We’re nearing the one year anniversary of the moment professional surfing reached its greatest height in visibility. There may never be another event that puts the sport on as big a stage as the 2015 J-Bay Open, broadcasting the non-surfing masses’ greatest fear when it comes to being in the ocean: encountering a shark. Naturally, the World Surf League can’t roll back down to South Africa in 2016 without making an effort to ensure their athletes are safe, which led to their partnership with Shark Mitigation Systems. They’ll be using the company’s system known as “Clever Buoy.”
Imagine an invisible fence built outside of the surf zone at J-Bay. Only this fence doesn’t physically keep animals outside that zone or surfers inside it. No nets, in fact there’s no physical fence of any kind, ensuring the same wildlife they’re protecting people against doesn’t interfere with the animals at all. “Clever Buoy” is actually a communication system that relays information between a satellite, a buoy system and safety personnel on the beach. The buoys track any movement nearby , using sonar transducers mounted on the ocean floor to analyze swimming patterns of marine life. If they determine something swimming by is a shark the information is relayed back to lifeguards, including target and location.
“We are very excited to be working to be working with the pro surfing league to showcase our technology and provide critical safety information to the organizers of the event,” says SMS co-founder Craig Anderson. “This will help place our technology on the world stage, showing what it can do to keep surfers and other ocean users safe in the water.”
SMS has also designed a shark deterrent wetsuit in collaboration with the University of Western Australia which they claim is “dangerous and unpalatable to sharks.”
