SharkPod Mounted to Boat?

[jeremyrfoster]

I read a story of a sailboat cruiser that wanted to go for a swim in the middle of the Pacific one calm day. After a few minutes in the water, the lady jumped onto the boat quickly and reported a "large fish". She and her husband then spotted it from the boat... a large white-tipped shark.

So, I was wondering. What is the range on those puppies and would it be feasible/advisable to mount one on the bottom of a boat like the one in this story so that you could feel safe unfouling the prop or cleaning the boat bottom or just pleasure swimming?

Just a thought... what do you think?

 

[Fly N Dive]

i dont know a lot on the subject, but the pod has two parts. i guess if it was powerful enough you could mount them bow/stern. no quite sure though

 

[mempilot]

I don't think they are strong enough to mount that far apart. Also, they don't really keep sharks away until 'they' get really close. There has been at least one case that I know of where the diver was supposedly wearing it wrong and it didn't have any effect on the shark, but the details were kind of sketchy.

Besides, are you protecting the boat, or you!

 

[Scubaroo]

You might be thinking of the scallop diver taken in South Australia from a year or two ago. Supposedly the device wasn't turned on until the last moment, and it was a 6m great white that had been hassling commercial boats for several days, so the effectiveness of any device against a shark that size is questionable.

Also heard that it was an older model than the current device.

 

[mempilot]

You might be thinking of the scallop diver taken in South Australia from a year or two ago. Supposedly the device wasn't turned on until the last moment, and it was a 6m great white that had been hassling commercial boats for several days, so the effectiveness of any device against a shark that size is questionable.

Also heard that it was an older model than the current device.

Ya, I think that was the one. Helps to turn it on, eh? 6m GW's aren't too afraid of much anyway, not that I've ever been anywhere near one! )

 

[jeremyrfoster]

Seems like they could at least be mounted the same distance apart on the boat that they are on a diver (~4 ft). If you mounted it on the bottom at the stern it would theoretically create the same size field as a personal unit... I believe that was 13-16 ft radius. I was hoping it would be possible to adjust the distance of the pads and the power to create an even larger field, but I don't know what the limits are.

I was researching them online and I think one company had the Scuba Pod for divers and the Commercial Pod which used the boats battery and an umbilical. It didn't mention the size of the field though. I just love the idea of taking a dip in the middle of the Atlantic, but not after reading Adrift by Steve Callahan... sounds like curious sharks are frequent and often not so small.