What a sensational idea!

I don't really understand the marketing challenge for this product at all.
It's a product that aims to ameliorate people's fear of death, and that's a motivating force that's probably even stronger than sex.

I think it'll be a raging success provided that:
1. It works (but let's be honest, shit doesn't have to even work to make a small fortune, e.g. Powerbands)
2. Performance isn't hampered (but I admit i'm probably not advanced enough in my abilities to notice the subtleties of fin variations)
3. It's not prohibitively expensive compared to a garden variety set of fins

Assuming those conditions are met, I can imagine that I will certainly buy this product for the rest of my surfing days. I doubt i'd be alone in those sentiments either.

I can imagine some opposition to this product though, due to the probable increase in people taking up surfing as a past-time if they don't have to shit themselves about shark attacks any more.

And there is also www.surfsafe.net.au , also mounted in your surfboard, can be retro fitted, also developed by a WA surfer and available now.

Would a distance of 1.5 - 2 meters be a big enough area to deter a hungry charging great white? I would have thought it would need to be more like 4-5 meters, at least, to discourage any attack?

I'd be interested to see how the cables from the deck grip get to the fins and how they are going to seal it from water ingress. Assuming that is how it works.

Don't get your hopes up
http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2010/08/physics-of-shark-attacks.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/shark-shield-device-fails-shark-food,49...

Thanks for your comments, greatly appreciated.

The Tom's Hardware press in 2008 was based on internal testing with the trailing antenna, the issue is that at speed and in choppy conditions the antenna does not sit in the water 100% of the time so the electrical field is not created correctly.

This will not occur with the new fin design.

If your interested in more recent research in 2012 Australian scientist's form the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) independently tested Shark Shield off the coast of South Africa, a dynamic test using towed seal decoys, a test that closely resembles a shark attacking a moving surfboard.

They conducted 189 tows of the seal decoy. With the Shark Shield turned OFF, there were 16 breaches and 27 surface interactions. With the Shark Shield turned ON, there were no breaches and only two at-surface interactions.

You can see their video here

Yes yes that's great, but will it stick to the roof of a car?

I might have dreamt it but didn't Captain Goodvibes come up with a pair of surfing undies that housed something akin to the 'shark shield technology' within a purpose built codpiece and the shark repelling electric field pulsed out from one's nether regions - primarily the buttocks? It would solve all the problems of fin hydrodynamics and the undies are transportable to any ocean going activity.

@Shark Shield,

What about the charge (geddit?) that your product attracts sharks from afar? Sharks are supposedly inquisitive creatures and they detect the field and swim toward it, putting every surfer not wearing a shield at risk.

So mr shark shield. Can you answer a few questions please
1. Has the products fundamental basic element of protection ( electromagnetic field) changed since scallop diver Paul Buckland was killed by a great white whilst wearing an earlier model shark shield which was on when Shannon pulled Paul into the boat and was being worn in a better way than the flipper mount proposed by shark shield. At the time the company hid behind the notion Paul was not wearing it as designed which us bullshit.
2. Does the magnetic field firstly attract pointers from a distance and then slightly irritate them when they get a whopping 1.5 metres away from the shield. So basically attracting a shark if it is in the area.
3. Do you really think a surprise predator like the white is gonna put the brakes on at a mere 1.5-2 metres from you and go away.

So once your product has attracted a shark and lets fantasise for a minute it will repel a HUNGRY great white what about the people in the water without one?
What about when the wearers batteries wear out after attracting a shark.
Aren't the same sensors your product apparently sends "dizzy" the very same sensors they use to detect prey from a distance?
Please clear these up for us
Ps I have personally seen a shark shield activated then attached to a dead bluefin tuna and then fed to a great white on the tuna farms in port Lincoln. The shark didn't seem too worried it swallowed the lot

I personally think the shark shield itself should be banned from use as it puts the rest of us in the water at risk.
Better just relax and enjoy. Lower heart rate and less vibrations etc reduce the risk of attack

Thanks again for the feedback, nice to know the myths that are in the market about the technology.

Firstly, Shark Shield is a safety device just like a seat belt, in most scenarios seat belts will save your life, but not in all circumstances. There are no 100% guarantees.

There have been over the past ten plus years attacks where a Shark Shield was reportedly involved. The coroner findings on two of these occasions discovered that the device was actually not being worn at the time, was on the boat, and another time about twelve years ago with the very first model, the coroner finding was that diver was not wearing it correctly. There is one other case we are aware of about two years ago with no finding found, the coroner could not determine whether the diver was or was not wearing a Shark Shield

The claim that electronic shark deterrents attracted sharks is a myth.

The reason this is a myth is because electrical currents disperse rapidly in water and as such cannot travel large distances, also the shark’s electrical sensory system is very short range, typically less than 0.5 meter.

All chondrichthyes — sharks, rays, skates and chimeras — possess ampulla receptors in their snouts, an electrical sensory system that is used to find food, communicate and find a mate.

An electronic shark deterrent consists of two electrodes that use salt water as a conductor between the two, creating a powerful electrical field that deters sharks. It is the electromagnetic field between two electrodes that over stimulates these jell filled electrical receptors with what can been described as a lightning fast pain of whale-like proportions.

These receptors are tuned to low-frequency fields and only operate when in close proximity with food. The ampulla receptors maximum sensing distance is well under a meter, and as electrical currents between two localized electrodes do not travel any distance through water (Shark Shield approx. 4m – 6m according to research by the South African National Space Agency), sharks being attracted from a great distance is an impossibility that would defy the laws of physics and biology.

Thanks

The product Paul was wearing 12 years ago instructed that the receiver should be on the fin of the diver. As this gave us shocks constantly and the act of swimming created a constant change in the distance between receivers therefore reducing the protection area we put the receiver above us ( the exact same distance away as if it were on the fin) on the air supply hose from the boat. A small float attached above the receiver kept the constant tension therefore constant maximum protection field was achieved.
The coroner said yes Paul was not wearing it as the instructions said so the company have hidden behind that ever since. The facts are Paul was wearing an active shark shield working to its maximum powers and was attacked and killed.
Are you also saying sharks sensors only work to .5 of a metre?

I've had a sharkshield "surf" that fits on the tail of a board for at least 6 or 7 years. It gives me great peace of mind in sharky spots, even if the effectiveness debate continues. A consensus amongst credible researchers that it does deter most attacks would be enough for me. Unanimous support and 100% protection is rare in any field of science.
My concern with the built in model is that you have to have a separate device for each board It would overcome the annoyance of having the electrodes wrapped around the board when you come to grief in the impact zone, but that doesn't happen too often, all going well.

According to Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampullae_of_Lorenzini
Sharks can detect fields as weak as 5nV/cm. that is 5 billionth of a Volt. They also use the system to detect prey by detecting the field changes produced by muscle action. If there is credible peer reviewed and published research that this device operates in a manner that they cannot detect until they are close and then effectively repels them I would suggest you produce it.

Thanks Roger,

Shark Shield has no need to "hide" behind anything, I'm simply stating what the corners report said, please also note that the same coronial enquiry recommended that Shark Shields should be used for commercial and recreational divers.

But to confirm, no safety product, bike helmet, seat belt, safety shoe, etc can ensure that in every situation your covered, this is an impossible expectation. As we continue to invest the technology gets better, twelve years later we are on the third generation of product.

Yes, that is correct, sharks electrical receptors maximum sensing distance is under one meter.

This has been borne out in many behavioural tests, the electroreceptive system is a relatively short distance sense often working in the 30-60cm range. Since these animals use this sense to detect the presence of living prey items that may not be otherwise detected (i.e. under the substrate), they are really working at their detection limits.

Therefore, although theoretically the ampullae of Lorenzini can detect very low strength electric fields, they do not use them to track animate objects over these long distances (where other senses such as audition and olfaction are the primary drivers).

This is not a Shark Shield statement, this is from the author of the topic entry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior.

Cheers.

Yes blindboy, you are correct, research does exist;

Sharks would only be attracted (if at all) to a deterrent at the point at which the electric field strength (of the deterrent) has dropped off enough to represent a prey-like stimulus (approx. 1-100nV/cm), at which point, if they approach the device they should quickly realise that this is not prey (as the field strength will increase greatly) and then subsequently be deterred.

Therefore, we would need to know at what distance from the device does a shark experience a field strength of approximately 1-100nV/cm.

From the research by the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) on Shark Shield their modelling shows the field strength up to about 3m from the device at a strength of about 1V/m (ie: 1000000 nV/cm).

We would be correct to assume that a shark would not react to the device beyond a 6m radius given that the electric strength would drop of very quickly beyond the 3m distance already modelled in the SANSA report.

But 12 years on is the basic principle of protection the same?
The shocks we got in those days were pretty bloody strong cant imagine it being beefed up much?
Believe me I want to believe and trust a product like yours but a lot needs to be proven to me and others in the professional dive/ fishing industry before my kids wear one!
Here is a platform for you to prove your product. Go for it !

Sorry sharkshield but I asked for a link to the published peer reviewed research. You haven't given it to me. Also you seem to think that nV represents one millionth of a Volt but the n is for nano.....one billionth of a volt. You are out by three orders of magnitude! Calculations of field strength in a medium like water are complex. You need to show us the research.

Issue for me is housing the charger in the tail pad.

Since you can't transfer a tail pad from board to board, whether changing between boards in a quiver, selling one or breaking it, and I understand each 'package' is going to retail for north of $500+ per board, then this is simply going to be too expensive to go mass market.

Close to doubling the cost of a new board, and if you just don't like it or you break it first surf then ... ?

Good luck to em, but market at that price will be tiny.

The charger unit will click in and out of the grip pad so you can move it between boards, the grip pad will be priced the same as a normal grip pad, as will the fins be priced the same as normal fins, so if your break a board you take your charger and fins with you, and leave the grip as you do today. The charger is expected to be $399

I hope this new product works but I don't think the findings shark shield is citing are conclusive enough (the seal tow trials in South Africa). Here is the write up for those interested:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0062730

From there you can download the paper in pdf form. PLOS ONE is a good quality journal.

The paper outlines two sets of experiments using the old shark shield, one in the Neptunes with static bait 150cm below the surface, and the tow experiments in South Africa.

The static experiments in South Oz are not completely close to the actual surfer experience because the bait was submerged deeper than any surfer waiting for a wave would be (150cm). More a diver I guess. The results suggest the shield did affect the sharks' behaviour but not in all measures. Unfortunately for us surfers, it didn't change how many times the bait was completely eaten (the bait was eaten about 78% of the time whether the shield was turned on or off). A potential benefit is that it took the shark twice as long to consume the bait when the shield was on (4 mins) as opposed to off (2 mins).

So that's a bit of a mixed bag, not fantastic but there is something there that might be useful for surfers. But for me, I don't think it's a close enough fit to surfers because it's submerged bait not floating.

The tow experiments in South Africa were surface based and the results are definitely encouraging but I don't find them completely convincing for surfers because the tows were between 8 and 10km/hr. I haven't thought about it before but I can't see myself paddling 8 km in one hour.

But I'm no Jamie Mitchell. He and his mates can do it, his record for Molokai-Oahu is 4hrs 40mins for 32 miles (50kms).

So I guess it's somewhat reasonable, but since we spend a fair bit of of our time sitting out the back and not paddling along at high speeds, I'd really like to see some experiments more specifically targeted for surfers testing this new product. Fingers crossed though because it would be fantastic to be able to rely on something like this.

Thanks benski. The main point " This study indicates that the behavioural response of white sharks and the level of risk reduction resulting from the electric field is contextually specific, and depends on the motivational state of the shark."
So maybe helpful .....but maybe not depending on the particular situation and how hungry or aggressive the shark is. Perhaps more importantly it doesn't address the possibility that the device will attract sharks. The field it produces is by necessity much stronger than that produced by our muscles which has to mean that it can be potentially be detected further away. Any info on that benski?

Indeed, I don't think it's conclusive enough yet. I don't know much about sharks, it's not my area at all but it seems like a cranky shark would hit the target and might try again regardless. If that dislodged the surfer from the board and away from the field, it might end up a fatal attack. After all, in the experiments the bait was taken when the field was on just as much as when it was off, it just took longer. Maybe the field would deter a curiosity bite, if there is such a thing.

Lots of maybes and mights in there, but there often is in this kind of research.

As for attraction, in that paper there's only the indirect stuff about the number of approaches rather than attracting the animals per se: "There was no significant difference in the number of approaches per trial when the electric field was produced..." and then "This suggests that the sharks did not approach the bait more often when an electric field was produced, but interacted with the bait more often within each approach"

Beyond that, I'm not sure and I don't have time to dig deeply just now. From memory there is some evidence that certain fishes can be attracted to electric fields created by electrofishing methods, but I don't think it's massively conclusive evidence. But that's a vague memory. I've seen invertebrates leap towards a current before but that's it.

I can't see this being cost effective for true surfers who use different equipment for different conditions and in the remote more sharky areas of Australia the waves usually have more power and you seem to go through a few boards. A system that is easily transferred from board to board, doesn't attract them and actually works is what they need. Until they come up with that and prove it 100% i can't see it being a goer.

And shark shied sorry if you have already answered this question and I missed it but
Have you CHANGED the make up of the electromagnetic field of the device from the original shark shield? Simply, is the effect on the shark any different in the new ones from the old ones?
A yes or no answer would be appreciated please !

i hate to post this as it scares a lot of people off the shark shield and the shark shield signal might be a different frequency to food, well it would be would it since its deterring sharks 1 metre away not making the shark eat you.
Well here is one page besides another doco i watched on sharks finding almost dead 1.5volt batteries from as far as1km away.
http://creationdesign.org/english/shark.html

Aqua shield sure does work, i went freedive shark fishing in an underwater cave with one aqua shiled attached to hand spear, sharks galore coming up and biting it, getting hooked and fighting over the spear. All dead. i think thats how you're meant to use it.

Might try using an aqua shield instead of a popper next time and go for reef sharks rather than GT's.

now they have all that electro magnetic field on or just below the board .... I'd be more worried about it " cooking " ya teste's in between sets . than doing much else ....
it might work if the shark was tired , but the pessimist in me says NEXT ....

Ya get the feeling that when you ask sharksheild a question your getting a computer generated answer.

Well if anyone surfs near me with one of those things on their board, I'll be sticken their fucken head between their fins!!!

Assuming the product actually works, why not produce something that a surfer can wear?
That way you're not having to convince surfers to modify their boards, sacrifice performance, locking them into a single board per session, locking them into a fin system/board type, using up their time changing the shark shield between boards etc. There seem to be many issues with the product just because it's focused on being an integral part of the board.
What happens when you loose your board & you've got a 150m swim across the deep, dark channel? No protection.

Surely shark shield can come up with a discreet design which is worn by the user. That eliminates all the problems above. Have a little battery pack you wear on you upper arm or backpack style.

If it was proven to work and I lived in a particularly sharky region, that is something I would probably invest money in.

Every summer there are sharks sighted by patrols or the odd surfer where I surf or nearby, however for the 25 years I've surfed here I have not seen one.
How many surfers have ever seen a shark?
I quickly asked 20 blokes who surf the same spot. None.

I certainly don't intend to offend. I think all the positive and negative research aswell as the facts on who is behind the research by means of funding etc. needs to be public.
Good on shark shield for getting involved with us punters and answering questions. Lives of victims and those left behind are horrifically altered after attacks it would be great if a product could be cost effective and effective. As a business model it needs to be affordable for everyone but most importantly proven beyond any reasonable doubt it does not attract them in the first place. Imagine the shitstorm if an attack occurred in the vicinity of someone wearing one.

Yes, I think that Sharkshield should be commended for putting themselves out there to answer these questions in a public forum. I think the obvious dedication to improving the product is also commendable. This new design does seem to address a number of the biggest gripes surrounding the older designs.

Ben and blindboy, good work questioning and investigating the physics involved with the potential for the electric field to attract sharks. Clear answers to these questions would be great but it would be almost impossible to conclusively prove with any certainty in the field. However, it should be possible to work out models of pulse dissipation (distance, strength etc). Though it is going to depend on each specific spot (water depth and local bathymetry) as well… And as you are already doing, this information could be used to predict potential shark behaviour based upon what we know of their physiological capabilities and behavioural responses to electrical stimuli…

I sincerely doubt that there is anything that could be made highly practical and affordable for surfers which would would deter a big, aggressive, determined and hungry shark from attacking. Nothing will work with every shark in every situation. Buying the shark shield is a decision to invest in minimised risk. The risk is already minute, but if the shark shield does what it is purported to, then it should deter the majority of sharks from 'curiosity' bites and possibly even more determined sharks from all out attacks at the last second… but if your unlucky enough to be targeted by a big shark intent on eating you… then well, your luck is up no matter what.

If you are prepared to pay 400 to take the risk of attack down from 0.0000002 to 0.0000001 (completely made up numbers just for the sake of argument!) then fine. But it would seem that the biggest return on investment is the placebo piece of mind (less stress hormone?) and less grief from the misses and family (definitely less stress hormone!). And that seem like a reasonable thing to spend money on… stress kills too;)

and seeings that there is no shark shield suitable for bodyboarders… if all you surfers get one then we'll be the easiest feed and you'll have less of us to run over...

A question for all to ponder and also for the Shark Shield guys - is there scope to produce a device which could be used in series in place of netting and drum-lines?

Been using one at cactus for the last 6 or 7 years. I think gravelle still sells them there. No evidence of ever having attracted a shark, and the science clearly says that is not going to happen. Certainly gives me peace of mind. Tried using a contraption that fitted the "surf" model to my ankle, but hated it. Interfered with my backfoot when surfing. Don't notice the tail mounted unit at all when surfing, only when recovering the board in the impact zone. Can shift it easily from one board to another. Looking forward to the fin mounted electrodes to overcome getting the odd tickle when retrieving my board.

im stayin outta this.the payoff?more waves4me&da boyz, yew!

Tony if you can back that comment about the science up I would like to see the published papers.

shark shield,

You said Charlie bought one after doing the testing (presumably Charlie is the author of the paper?). Perhaps you could ask him to comment here to elaborate on why.

I think there are some encouraging results in the study. But the big issue for me is that there was no difference in the frequency of the static bait being completely consumed when when the shield was on or off. If it's turned off, the shark eats the static bait and if it's turned on, the shark eats the static bait, but a bit slower. That doesn't seem like a super effective deterrent to me. I get a bit more time to paddle away if I see a shark (hopefully at 8-10km/h), but only if I see it.

I spend a fair bit of my time in the surf sitting out the back and when I'm paddling back out, it isn't at 8-10km/h I don't think. So I'd be interested to know what aspect of the results suggested to the author that it was a worthwhile purchase.

Please understand, I'm not having a go at you. I'd like your product to be functioning and available. I'd look very seriously at buying one if I was gonna surf in WA for an extended period of time. But you started by selectively quoting the study, ignoring the static trials that don't show such good results, and now you're calling on the author's decision as further evidence. I'm not quite so convinced yet so it'd be great to hear more. I'm not disputing the facts, just asking what made him (and even what makes you) think it's worthwhile, when the evidence doesn't appear to me to be massively convincing.

tony wrote:Been using one at cactus for the last 6 or 7 years. I think gravelle still sells them there. No evidence of ever having attracted a shark, and the science clearly says that is not going to happen. Certainly gives me peace of mind.

Tony, I'm calling you out on this one. That is complete bullshit, the guy's at cactus are totally against any electronic devices, they are of the belief that they attract sharks, part of the whole surfing reserve set up was getting anything with a motor banned as most modern motors have electronics.

I can't see Gravelle stocking them and if they're such a popular buy around that area, why at different times that I have been there no one is surfing due to a white pointer cruising the area? If the local shaper sells them you would think at least one local on any day would be wearing one.

Look forward to seeing you there, if a whitey shows up you can paddle out and repel it.

I'm not a scientist, and don't pretend to be. If the general consensus of ackowledged experts in the field reaches a conclusion then I trust that. Unanimity is an unrealistic expectation. You'll still get serious evidenced arguments that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago, even though the consensus amongst evolutionary biologists and geologists is that it is scientifically impossible. I wish I could point to peer reviewed research about sharkshield's pulse degrading after a given distance. I don't think that research has been done one way or the other. I'm trusting in what has been explained as the laws of physics as they apply in this case, coupled with the biology of the shark.
I have been using my shark shield at Cactus, Streaky, Yorkes, Waitpinga consistently over the last 6 or 7 years, alone and in crowds. I freely admit I am psychologically dependent upon it for the peace of mind it gives me. Anecdotally there's never been any evidence of a shark having been attracted by the device.
I won't verbal Gravelle, but let me say he did have one in his shop when I first spoke with him about them a few years ago, and he had a more open mind than Morris indicates. I've not seen anyone else with one in the water, so I'm certainly not suggesting anyone else on the west coast uses them.
Even if they are a placebo, why the aggro if I choose to use one in the water?

Because Tony you may actually be attracting a shark in to see what you are, and them repel it onto the bloke sitting 15 ft away.

As I said Shaun, I've been consistently using a Sharkshield at Cactus, Yorkes, Waitpinga etc, for several years, amongst big crowds at times, and no one has reported any kind of shark sighting. The only time I've had an encounter was by myself, at dusk, at Cactus, when a grey submarine broke water about 20 metres away. I was very pleased to have the device on board. There is absolutely no evidence that the device brought it in. If it did, there would have been more than one sighting by me or others over the years.

Please Mr Sharkshield could you provide Shaun and others with links to the evidence which will dispel this myth

"If the general consensus of ackowledged experts in the field reaches a conclusion then I trust that. "
Tony if you have some evidence that this is the case I would like quite genuinely to see it. Sharkshield seems to have dropped out without providing data about the extent of the field or the reaearch on which it is based other than the ecological studies, which are far from conclusive. Keep believing, peace of mind is priceless.

Sorry I didn't see the last comment on the published data on the extent of the Shark Shield electrical field.

We have electrical strength / size diagrams on our website, these are included in the research videos and the brochures. This data is from research conducted by the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) which estimated the electrical field size to be between 4m - 6m, outside approximately six meters the electrical field strength is undetectable to shark.

Hopefully you can appreciate that having a space agency conduct research is very expensive and the outcomes assist us greatly with new product development /improvements, so no, we have no intention of publishing or making our proprietary product research / trade secrets public to assist potential competitors.

We aim to work with the leading experts in each required field to develop our products, for example for the new fin design we are working with world leading CSRIO material scientists. Our design team is also working with some extremely big names in the surfing world and we expect to make an announcement around this very soon...............

Thanks for the response. I am quite interested in this and there is an obvious need for a product of this type. Naturally I would not expect you to give away exact details but there are a few things that I can't get to add up about the field. The diagram on your wed site indicates that at 2m the field strength is 0.3 V/m. Wikipedia assert that sharks can detect fields as weak as 5nV/cm. At 2m by my calculation your field is still 3,000,000 nV/cm. I cannot reconcile these figures with the field being undetectable beyond 6m.

Sorry shark shield Ive worked on white sharks for nearly ten years both juveniles and adults alongside Barry Bruce and Russ Bradford from CSIRO..Weve been around adult animals in motivation mode and I am not convinced what you have here will guarantee surfers safety…I agree with blind boy,until there is a peer reviewed publication I won't be convinced..I know the outcome of the shark shield research at the Neptunes and trust me it wasn't encouraging….and I am a long time surfer..Not trying to have a go at you by the way,good luck in refining your product...

If you can't surf without one tony maybe take up another sport. You should be told to leave the water in my opinion

Completely agree Morris. Total bullshit I have not seen or heard of someone getting away with wearing one up there and it won't be tolerated on the southern eyre either.

Your full of shit mate. They stand out like dogs balls.

Don't know who your talking about. I have worked with all models of these things have had a mate killed whilst wearing one and can tell you that I and others are certain they do fuck all. I think they attract them but can't confirm it. Only someone with complete lack of respect for others would try and wear one in the surf. I have only seen one guy try and wear one here don't think it was this old man miller fella. Good name though, bet he lives on a hill and has a shotgun!

Like I said they stand out. The big tail coming off them that is cable tied down the leg rope is the size of a bloody python. If you think you could roll your wetty over the ankle attachment your definately living up to your name there buddy.
You obviously have never seen one or worn one

I stand corrected. Have not seen that one. Old man miller could slip that one past easy the crafty bugger

Yeah man, a lot of these have been sold in WA in the last couple of years after all the shark action going on. The local surf shop near where I was living was doing a brisk trade, soon as they were in stock they were out of stock.

Funny thing was how blokes would get a black permanent marker / paint pen and cover up the logo so those opposed to em wouldn't notice them being worn. Especially the blokes surfing Avi point, 200 yards from the Peel Inlet / Dawesville Cut, bull shark heaven.

Thanks again for the feedback, very valuable to hear the perceptions on electronic shark deterrents. There’s two obvious concerns; does it work and does it attract sharks.

Does it work and how well it works is always going to be ongoing research, keeping in mind that the Shark Shield technology has been in the market for nearly fifteen years, and we of course would argue definitive research data available on Shark Shield working effectively, provided by both in-house and independent scientific results.

But let’s agree that there is not enough data to conclude with 100% certainty that it works all the time, and that the hundreds of testimonials are just nice to hear. At least Shark Shield can state that its products have been scientifically and independently tested, and you will find it is the only product that has been. Our product is not a gimmick aimed at taking advantage of the fear in the market, they are backed by research and the market clearly needs more, and peer reviewed, which over time will be provide.

Does it attract sharks is a physics / electronics question, as stated before, it actually has nothing to do with electronic deterrents, it’s how far does an electrical pulse of +-50V between two nodes travel through water. The South African National Space Agency concluded that the Shark Shield field strength at approximately six meters was undetectable, lets allocated an 2x error and call it twelve meters, that is not a long distance transmission, the shark will have sensed your movement in the water way before then. For the physics experts and electronic engineers, the question is how far can an electric pulse / field be transmitted underwater, a pulse between two electrodes +-50V at a duration of between 0.1 and 200ms at a frequency of between 1hz – 60hz.

Don’t believe Shark Shield on whether an electronic shark deterrent attracts sharks from great distances, independently find the answer to the above question and you’ll know the facts.

If electrical signal transmission through water was possible then the military would not still be using primarily torpedo’s connected to wires for control, and this is trying to send an electrical signal/field over a distance, not just two electrodes pulsing.

For your own benefit I think you need to consult a physicist with experience in this area to provide a sound scientific explanation of the field its exact properties and how it interacts with the sharks sensory organs. If you are satisfied that it is effective it is a pity that the science you quote is inexact and to be honest, factually inaccurate.. Appealing to authority is all very well but when it is not backed up by published data it rings alarm bells in anyone with a science background. Good luck with it!

The research on "how far electricity travels through salt water" is a given fact of physics, no more research is required, and this fact answers the question "can electronic shark deterrents attract sharks over long distance".

It seems however I'm unable to communicate this fact clearly, so sorry about that.

As the example "the military can't control a torpedo with electrical pulses through water" didn't convenience people that electrical pulses can not travel large distances underwater, so maybe consider another example of how far a lighting bolt travels through salt water.

Obviously an extreme and significantly higher electrical power output than any shark deterrent could possibly be, the general science view is 20 feet plus some depending the strength of the strike, but not kilometers.

The only know successfully deployed sub-sea electromagnetic transmission application is for submarine communications system using Extremely Low Frequency (ELF)

sharkshield wrote:

The only know successfully deployed sub-sea electromagnetic transmission application is for submarine communications system using Extremely Low Frequency (ELF)

I did find a document that stated to get decent distance under water one would have to transmit in the range 10 - 30 kHz which is not available to mere mortals anyway.

From the document.
"Massive antenna dimensions are required, particularly for the above the surface antenna. (Even at 30 kHz, a
wavelength is 10 km). Large transmitter powers are usually required to compensate for the high antenna losses inherent
in the shortened low frequency antenna.".

Shark Sheild, are the stats listed above of "a pulse between two electrodes +-50V at a duration of between 0.1 and 200ms at a frequency of between 1hz – 60hz" the operating specs of the shield itself?

To all the good folks of Salem who came up with these gems,
“Well if anyone surfs near me with one of those things on their board, I'll be sticken their fucken head between their fins!!! “...“tony maybe take up another sport. You should be told to leave the water in my opinion”... “Total bullshit I have not seen or heard of someone getting away with wearing one up there and it won't be tolerated on the southern eyre either”... “Your full of shit mate”... “I think they attract them but can't confirm it. Only someone with complete lack of respect for others would try and wear one in the surf.”
Please answer me this,
I first starting using a Sharkshield at Cactus in early 2005. A conservative estimate of time in the water with the device on, since that date, shows Cactus 350 hrs, Yorkes 500 hrs, Waitpinga 660 hrs. Total 1510hrs. If it attracts sharks to others in the lineup how is it there has never been any evidence of anyone else in the water, or on the beach, spotting one? As I said previously I saw one once when I was by myself with the device on, but I have seen sharks in the water on three other occasions when I didn't have the device.
If they work to prevent shark attacks (even if not 100% of the time), then your aggro scaremongering is more likely to result in someone being attacked when it could have been prevented.
Can you present any serious evidence, or even plausible theory, to show that they attract sharks?
Blindboy I do appreciate your intelligent questioning of Sharkshield, which has resulted in the following answers,
“The ampulla receptors maximum sensing distance is well under a meter, and as electrical currents between two localized electrodes do not travel any distance through water (Shark Shield approx. 4m – 6m according to research by the South African National Space Agency), sharks being attracted from a great distance is an impossibility that would defy the laws of physics and biology”...
“This has been borne out in many behavioural tests, the electroreceptive system is a relatively short distance sense often working in the 30-60cm range. Since these animals use this sense to detect the presence of living prey items that may not be otherwise detected (i.e. under the substrate), they are really working at their detection limits.
Therefore, although theoretically the ampullae of Lorenzini can detect very low strength electric fields, they do not use them to track animate objects over these long distances (where other senses such as audition and olfaction are the primary drivers).
This is not a Shark Shield statement, this is from the author of the topic entry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior.”...
“Sharks would only be attracted (if at all) to a deterrent at the point at which the electric field strength (of the deterrent) has dropped off enough to represent a prey-like stimulus (approx. 1-100nV/cm), at which point, if they approach the device they should quickly realise that this is not prey (as the field strength will increase greatly) and then subsequently be deterred.
Therefore, we would need to know at what distance from the device does a shark experience a field strength of approximately 1-100nV/cm.
From the research by the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) on Shark Shield their modelling shows the field strength up to about 3m from the device at a strength of about 1V/m (ie: 1000000 nV/cm).
We would be correct to assume that a shark would not react to the device beyond a 6m radius given that the electric strength would drop of very quickly beyond the 3m distance already modelled in the SANSA report.”...
“You can view the actual SARDI research report here, the publication above is a review of it http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0062730
Charlie conducted a static test, a dynamic test and whether sharks where attracted to the shark shield, to which the answer was no evidence to suggest this.”...
“The research on "how far electricity travels through salt water" is a given fact of physics, no more research is required, and this fact answers the question "can electronic shark deterrents attract sharks over long distance".”...
I hope they do more research, but that seems unlikely unless evidence to the contrary can be produced.

Thanks Tony for the considered response. It definitely helps clarify the science but, without being picky a nano volt is a billionth of a Volt so by my calculation 1 volt per metre is equal to 10 million nano volts per centimetre, not 1 million as you suggest. The simple physics of fields is that they only reach zero at infinity. Insert a distance into a field formula and you will get a value. As yet no-one has given what that value would be at 6m from the sharkshield nor the distance at which it would fall below the 5nV/cm value quoted as the sensitivity of sharks in Wikipedia.
Using a standard inverse square law for field strength and including the permittivity constant for sea water I actually get a value around 300,000 nV/cm at 6m assuming that the initial field strength is 1 V/cm. If my calculations are incorrect I will readily admit it, I am not an electrical engineer. I really hope the research supports your conclusions but simply asserting that some authority has made a claim about the field strength and a shark's ability to detect it does not address my lingering doubts.

Just a quick point. You may remember that the problems they had with the Hubble telescope were caused by an engineer misreading a unit.........anyone with any physics at all has suffered anxiety attacks ever since.

Just read all the comments. Im a surfer from Adelaide, surfed for over 25 years, Boat Harbour,Yorkes, Victor,West, Vicco etc. Only ever seen one White at Tunks a few years back do the Submarine cruise through, scariest thing I've ever seen.

Good job Shark Shield on the feedback / comments, the principle is simple really, Shark Sheild = Prevention (May not be 100%) but better than nothing, like wearing a seatbelt. The fin idea is a much better concept to, ill be buying one!!!

Also wearing lighter coloured fluro wetsuits (Try not to look like a seal)
Spray patterns underneath your board (Random colours and lines)
Avoid surfing between dawn and dusk and don't piss in your wetsuit.

Strong support for their use from the WA Opposition.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-16/shark-shields-touted-as-alternativ...

tgf ....
i suggest not pissing in your wetsuit as a good habit .
a : it can rott your wetsuit or booties .
b: you may not piss much blood every time( minute quantities ) but every now and then it may be different , or we could be talking buildup in the rubber .... ?

The Exmouth Yank submarine base in Exmouth pretty much does all sub communications for the most of the southern hem. or atleast this half of teh southern hem .
Anyway mighty powerful ELF communications , not sure the signal strengths are as high people have quoted ( 300Khz or whatever ) i would of thought that figure was more medium freq. range ...
Anyway , that area near the Tip is a reef and tiger shark hotbed .... And they are all extremely active , in what could be described as strong tidal movement just off the Naval Pier ....
Be it the transmissions or the tide flows that " attracts them " or gets them all jacked up and breaching and barrell rolling is anyones guess . But only Old School Exmouth Residents would know as the sub base has been there a LONG time . Perhaps Mark
" Finney " would know or know who would know ... Anyone in touch with him or his son wanna ask the question would be appreciated or anyone thats been a regular guest up that way for the last 40 - 50 years ???

bb , i like how the most boisterous in " that " debate don't realise that the SS's are not necessarily excepted amongst those most at risk as an alternative .
and lastly tgf ,
Jap & Jeff smux , had B's in P's on one or more of their tow boards for awhile , if anyone has tested that stripe and yellow colour theory its those two ???

I forget who recently did research on this field to try and answer the question of whether electronic shark deterants work? But the conclusion that was reached was that these devises do not stop a shark eating you, but will change the sharks behavior long enough to get out of the water for most instances. As to using them, I do when I`m out spearfishing, but having surfed many years over the Yorke peninsula, I would say that being unnoticed like the boys on the Eyre peninsula are saying, is probably a much better idea. Most sharks are not on the attack\hunt for humans. Give the sun at least half an hour penetrating the water so that the schools of fish begin to move off shore, the sharks will follow them, and get out before the sun leaves penetrating the water and those same schools move back in shore. Spearing fish on the other hand can be like ringing the dinner bell, so we where a shark shield and don't spear any where near where we are going to surf.

So the science on the product "is in"

If that is the case, all the makers have to do is show us a clip of a surfer with the said product floating amongst hungry large sharks.

Then u will see supposedly "slow to adopt" surfers take up the product in droves.

but really, the article comes across as the usual marketing beat up....show us the proof

Here is some light reading for those who have irrational fears involving Shark Shields attracting sharks: From: http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/em/lectures/node102.html

Extract:
The conductivity of sea water is only about $\sigma\simeq 5 (\Omega {\rm m})^{-1}$. However, this is still sufficiently high for sea water to act as a good conductor for all radio frequency electromagnetic waves (i.e., $\omega < 10^9$Hz). The skin-depth at 1MHz ($\lambda\sim 2$km) is about $0.2$m, whereas that at 1kHz ( $\lambda\sim 2000$km) is still only about 7m. This obviously poses quite severe restrictions for radio communication with submerged submarines. Either the submarines have to come quite close to the surface to communicate (which is dangerous), or the communication must be performed with extremely low frequency (ELF) waves (i.e., $f< 100$Hz). Unfortunately, such waves have very large wave-lengths ( $\lambda > 20,000 {\rm km}$), which means that they can only be efficiently generated by extremely large antennas.

tone generator
every animal has a particular frequency that it cant stand
has any one tried a range of frequencies that sharks dont like
there will be a tone that wont attract sharks, but will drive them away
because it will be underwater, humans wont hear it
there will be a Hz that disorientates a sharks sense mechanisms
electromagnetic frequencies will attract as the electrical impulse regardless of strength, will replicate a food source and be amplified thru salt water- an electrical conductor.

Davetherave, you seem to have some fundamental misconceptions about physics.

Electromagnetic frequencies do not get amplified by conductors, quite the opposite.

An electromagnetic field propagates by alternating between electric field and magnetic field, they cause each other. When an electromagnetic field propagates through a conductor, the electric component of the field is conducted away and the entire field disappears very soon.

Sound will indeed travel very well under water and it does attract sharks from large distances.

I think the fears about electric fields attracting sharks from afar are based on a special form of Zeno's most famous paradox:

The paradox proposes that Achilles (the Hussein Bolt of 300BC) will never catch up with a tortoise if the tortoise has a head start in a race, because the tortoise always moves on while Achilles catches up. But in reality, Achilles will overtake the tortoise, although the tortoise always moves a little bit further while Achilles catches up to where the tortoise had been just a moment earlier. It took millennia to find the mathematical proof for this obvious fact. In the seventeenth century, a Scottish mathematician proved that an infinite number of numbers can add up to a finite number.

In the case of the Shark Shield's field propagating in conducting sea water, it will completely disappear, instead of continuing ad infinitum while getting weaker and weaker, just like Achilles will run past the tortoise even if it had a 100m head start.

I can't these becoming popular until they can be easily moved from one board to another.

I have three boards and 5 sets of fins, it would be too expensive for me to set this up for all boards - and what if I can't get the fins I like in the shark fins?

When a system is created that can be moved from one board to another as easily as changing fins then I will buy one

Cool, but what happens if a shark decides to attack from more than 2 meters away? I mean, if the shark is zeroed in and has already made the decision, I don't think a last millisecond headache will change its mind.

Hi Pointy, I use the Freedom7, which attaches to my ankle rather than the board. The main reason for ordering the Freedom7 rather than the Shark Shield Surf7 was that the Surf7 apparently has a 6-8 weeks waiting time. Sounds kind of like it's popular already to me!
I have also put in an order for the Surf7, to compare them and to allow me to take the kids surfing, and ordered an extra surfboard mounting kit so I should be able to switch the Surf7 between boards relatively easily.

excuse me if i have missed it, but what hertz does the actual shark not like? What range of frequencies have been found to deter sharks?

Sharksheild.
Sorry if I missed it but when is the fin system available?

Do they offer a money back guarantee?