What's the real risk of being bitten by a shark?

[Pump me up]

According to this article, the risk of being bitten by a shark is ~ 1 in 30 million per swim.
http://theconversation.com/whats-the-re ... alia-23132

So this means the risk is ~ 1 in 3 million per 10 swims, 1 in 300 000 per 100 swims, and 1 in 30 000 per 1000 swims.

Similar to most of the crew here, I would've had > 2000 "swims". 1:15000 chance of being shark bait??? Slim, but I still don't like those odds. Possibly worse for ram air lovers because they spend more time swimming. Let's cull the b*stards..

[rightguard]

I don't believe in odds...

You either get bit or you don't. You might bet bit on your first swim or your 1,000,000. 1 in 1,000,000 by no means that you have to go swimming 1,000,000 times before you get bit.

Plus I don't think it matters how much time you spend in the water. The only guy on Maui that got bit was tacking. Means he was in the water less than a second. There are tons of beginners everyday spending hours in the water and none of them got bit.

[edt]

According to this article, the risk of being bitten by a shark is ~ 1 in 30 million per swim.
http://theconversation.com/whats-the-re ... alia-23132

So this means the risk is ~ 1 in 3 million per 10 swims, 1 in 300 000 per 100 swims, and 1 in 30 000 per 1000 swims.

Similar to most of the crew here, I would've had > 2000 "swims". 1:15000 chance of being shark bait??? Slim, but I still don't like those odds. Possibly worse for ram air lovers because they spend more time swimming. Let's cull the b*stards..

There are about a million kiteboarders in the world most kiters dont kite in sharky waters. If there is no food for the shark they will not be there that's all there is to it, so say 1 in 10 are in sharky places like south africa or australia, if you assume the average kiter has a day job, he gets out about 10 weekends a year, for about 150 hours per year, this means kiters that are in sharky waters spend a total of 150 * 100,000 = 15 million hours. Kiters get eaten by sharks about once every other years, so my estimate if you kite where it is sharky you will get eaten by a shark once every 30 million hours.

their odds are 1 in 30 million per swim and if you say a swim is one hour that is the exact number I came up with. So yeah I like their estimate.

"Let's cull the b*stards"

I know you are just trolling here. Like most kiters I love sharks. Sucks to be eaten by one of course but I wouldn't want less sharks just because of that, they are a part of nature.

Sharks are majestic and wonderful. I am no buddha tho, there are plenty of animals I would eradicate given a chance. Ticks. Mosquitos. Lampreys.

[windybrit]

I'm pretty sure the odds for kiters are better than swimmers since we are mostly on, not in, the water and also moving more quickly than they are. I worry more about my safety riding my bicycle.

[Pump me up]

"Let's cull the b*stards.."
I know you are just trolling here. Like most kiters I love sharks. Sucks to be eaten by one of course but I wouldn't want less sharks just because of that, they are a part of nature.

I wasn't talking about sharks. I was referring to ram air lovers.

[Flyfish]

of coarse there are odds. its called exposure to risk. if you swim in a swimming pool, your odds are very low you will be bite by a shark. on the same note the more time you expose yourself to high risk the greater your odds become. swim in a pool filled with sharks for 30 seconds, youve got a low likelyhood of bite. swim for 3 hours in the same pool....

so on that note, its all about where you kite. i get the pleasure of kiting nd surfing in California's "red triangle". Great whites breed at the Faralon Islands off of San Fransico. but during the fall, they"re feeding typically from Santa Cruz to the Oregon boarder (of coarse much bigger area than that, but thats where thy concentate). that said, i personally know three friends that have been bite. ( these are friends... not just "heard about it stuff) two of the guys had typical teeth to th ass but were out of the hospital in a couple days, and the third hd his board bite but missed him. a fourth buddy was walking out when i was going in and he said a 14ish footer swam right under his board where he could kick it. with all that said, ive spent my life in the water and never seen one ever.

I personally think sharks are super smart. I think they are below us way more than we realize but they typically dont care about us. i do think that sometimes thier teritorial nature kicks in sometimes and the do a "im pissed off" bite and release. and then also the younger ones might do the old "whats this" bite and release.

if you look at the frequency, in my area, fall is the time. september october and part of november, after that the odds drop quick.

BTW, all three of my buddys that have been bite are all still surfing (including the one that could have kicked it) so if the guys that have actually been inside sharks mouth can get back in the water, so can I.

[Flyfish]

heres a good shark story for you... ill try to keep it short, but its true.

my old neighbor was an old Portugees man. when i used to load my surfboards into my truck, he would always say " you crazy! you crazy! there's sharks out there! when i was a boy, i swim in the Azores and sharks swim all around me. i take a stick and hit them on the head! you crazy!"
he would be shaking his finger at me.
i used to think " yea right old timer... you swam with sharks and hit them on the head with a stick" sure. who swims with a stick by the way?

well, im a pilot, and i used to fly a corperate jet. one trip to Europe, on the way back we stopped on the island of Flores in the Azores (this is where a good amount of people including my neighbor imigrated to my smallish town). so im cruzing around the island with a guy that lives in California but tons of family there, and he tells me my neighbor Manuelle has died since ive been gone. then we're driving around and we come to a port of sorts. he tells me that back in the day the ships would set anchor because there was no dock built and dump barrals of goods overboard. then guys would swim the barrels to the shore. he then tells me that sharks would be all over the place because oftain some barrels would break open and food spewed out. everytime a ship came to port, it was feeding time. oh, he says, Manuelle was one of the guys that swam the barrels in.

oh my god, Manuelle instantly became my hero. who can say they hit sharks over the head with a stick?!!

[Bille]

"Let's cull the b*stards.."
I know you are just trolling here. Like most kiters I love sharks. Sucks to be eaten by one of course but I wouldn't want less sharks just because of that, they are a part of nature.

I wasn't talking about sharks. I was referring to ram air lovers.

Dame Dude !!
Did you talk to your alter-ego , (alexrider) ; about your relapse
back into Dissociative Disorders ? One of the voices in your head, Needs
some professional help. Your talking about killing people because
of their choice in kites ; that's Fucked-Up !!

Bille

[plummet]

Studies show that only kitesurfers flying inflatable kites have been attacked by sharks. Never has a foil flyer been nibbled on!

So...

Go buy a foil pumpy and you will be save.

[MonkeyAir]

Thanks for the great story Flyfish.

Have been around sharks when swimming out lifeguarding this area and had no idea they were around me. An ex navy seal diving were I was swimming came up to our lifeguard tower to tell us he had just seen the largest mako in his experience very close to me during my work out swim around the buoy in clear water where I thought I had seen everything on the familiar area through my goggles. Teaching a kitesurfing lesson elsewhere. A large white showed up just cruising where we had been doing a body drag with a student not two minutes earlier and just 15m off the shore. It just cruised up the coast with the dorsal fin visible with an occasional swish of the tail clearly visible. Distance between rear of dorsal and tail had to be 10 ft at least so double that for total length.

Think the previous poster nailed it, in that sharks are around far more than we think and really not looking for us semi advanced primates. Heaps of local sightings and first hand encounters here. There is a little school of juvenile GWS that for some reason hang out just down the street and in relatively shallow water in front of one of the most popular local sea food restaurants/surf spots. The girlfriend of an old student of ours told us she just kited over the back of a great white shark one day. Her boyfriend had a helicopter flown out immediately from his work location a few miles away and you can see the pictures of the great whites on my tangles blog on happyinsurf.com or monkeyair.com They are juveniles but still in the 15 foot range.

Our student had his pilot guide him in his boat over to where the sharks were and he shot some pictures from this vantage point as well. His pilots and others flying over this crowded surf spot frequently report seeing the whites swimming right under the oblivious surfers at this spot and many others up and down the coast. We swim, surf ski, SUP, surf and kite here year round. They say the juveniles do not start hunting the large fish and pinipeds/seals/etc till their teeth form a more broad based triangular shape. This is to occur when they are around 17 feet is what I've been told. Not sure on the accuracy of this length to dietary information. At this point they swim north to the Red Triangle area to live. The mothers travel south to have their babies and this is to have accounted for the majority of South California attacks over the years. Soccer Mom sharks getting a snack on the way home from dropping the kids off.
We used to get off our boards and make adjustments to kite gear next to the buoy where they tend to hang out...Dooooohh...Better off not knowing...

Sorry to take the PMU jab/bait hook line and stinker. but.....
You might not want to make jabs about having to swim in with a foil nonsense after the non re-launching LEI kite of that tragic Florida shark attack episode. Have not had problems relaunching good closed cell arcs and foils for almost two decades. Rescued heaps of other riders, equipment and even boat paddlers in trouble on them. User friendly in marginal winds, lei kites will literally not stay up in. All kites work some work better in different areas. Try everything for enough time to make a true judgement and then stick with what works for you.