Whenever Adam Wooler steals a glance across the Tasman Sea, he can’t help but admire Australia’s surf lifesaving culture.
The head of coast safety and research at Surf Life Saving New Zealand (SLSNZ) describes Australia as an “innovator worldwide”, and praises how ingrained the red and yellow flags have become in the nation’s psyche since being first pitched in the sand in 1935.
That said, Wooler has a word of warning for a nation that seemingly reverts to one message whenever someone drowns off the coast.
“You can’t just keep pushing for people to swim at a patrolled beach and do nothing else,” he says. “The evidence shows we’re not going to change people swimming outside the flags.”
Not a single person drowned swimming between the flags in Australia last summer, but there were 54 coastal drownings outside the flags.
As Perth prepares to host next week’s World Conference on Drowning Prevention, there are concerns the host nation is too reliant on one message, as other countries pursue AI-based solutions to reduce drownings on unpatrolled beaches.
‘A quieter location away from crowds’
Professor Rob Brander is choosing his words carefully. The man widely known as “Dr Rip” found himself in a media storm in 2017 after questioning the effectiveness of the swim-between-the-flags mantra.
He says flags are “absolutely an effective system” but remains frustrated that each time a beachgoer drowns in Australia, beach safety officials tend to focus on one message.
“I worry that the constant reliance on the swim-between-the-flags message after a drowning on an unpatrolled beach is falling on deaf ears,” he says. “We need to address the unpatrolled beaches problem head-on.”
Fewer than 5% of Australia’s 11,000 beaches are patrolled and only 20% of the 721 beaches in its most populous state of New South Wales.
Brander’s University of NSW Beach Safety Research Group found that at more than 90% of coastal tourist parks in NSW, the closest beach is unpatrolled or temporarily unpatrolled.
Surveys of beachgoers at unpatrolled beaches showed people swam there because it was close to their accommodation or they had a desire for “a quieter location away from crowds”.
“It’s a fantasy to assume that everyone staying at a beautiful beach is going to jump in a car and drive 20 minutes to the nearest patrolled beach,” Brander says. “That would be nice but it’s just not going to happen.
“We need to accept that and think how can we keep people at unpatrolled beaches safe?”
The case for technology
How other nations are tackling the unpatrolled beach issue is explored in Rip Current Survival, a feature-length documentary that will premiere at the Perth conference.
Born out of a rip current tragedy at an unpatrolled NSW beach in 2016, it was filmed across more than a dozen countries, many of whom are turning to technology to keep beachgoers safe.
“We know people swim at 700 beaches in New Zealand but we can only patrol about 90 so we’ve had to think outside the box and that means using tech as much as possible,” Wooler tells Guardian Australia.
SLSNZ has partnered with the country’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) to develop a rip current identification tool underpinned by artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies.
Having used thousands of images to train an AI-based model, the program can already recognise rip currents in video footage or stills with more than 90% accuracy and SLSNZ wants beachgoers to be using the technology on their phones within three years.
UNSW and SLSA have received funding to pursue a similar tool – a rip current detection smartphone app called Rip Eye – but Brander says it will solely be used for training and education.
“I would never provide the public with an AI-based rip-spotting app,” he says. “I’m very wary of giving people technology that will give them a false sense of security and may actually encourage them to avoid swimming between the flags.”
Told of this theory, Wooler says: “New Zealand is a country that doesn’t have a culture of suing each other. If it was Australia, England or America, we would probably not be as gung-ho about trying innovations like this … but we want to share it with the public in a meaningful way to let them make informed decisions.”
In a similar vein, lifesaving authorities in the United Kingdom have embraced technology to develop a solution that can predict the likelihood of rip currents based on factors such as wave height, wind direction, tide height and beach type.
SLSNZ’s commitment to using technology to protect swimmers at unpatrolled beaches is driven by a stark belief.
“The reality is you can’t teach most people to spot rip currents,” Wooler says. “They learn how to identify them on a video but put them on the beach and they struggle. They can’t translate what they’ve been taught to real-life.
“We believe the only way to get the average person to spot a rip is to get tech to do it for them.”
While an SLSA spokesperson says its research shows most people who say they can spot a rip get it wrong, Brander has faith beachgoers can learn to identify them without technology.
“Teaching people how to spot rips is difficult and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight,” he says. “I don’t think it’s impossible but we need to really investigate what the most effective educational methods and approaches are because we haven’t done that yet.”
The human face of drowning tragedies
Josh Martin lost his brother Ryan in 2016, after he’d rushed into the water to assist a seven-year-old caught in a rip at Dreamtime beach near northern NSW’s Fingal Head.
Despite the presence of lifesavers on the northern side of the headland and signage warning of multiple drownings at the rip current hotspot, swimmers continue to flock to the unpatrolled stretch of sand that regularly features on online best beach lists.
“I do think we have to look beyond the flags when it comes to rip safety,” says Martin.
“I was really vocal about the lack of prior action at Dreamtime given lives had been lost before and it was a known hazard.
“Australia’s coastline is just too big and too many lives are being lost to simply say ‘Swim between the flags’ so I support any mission to look at new ways to stop drownings.”
An SLSA spokesperson says the organisation recognises it is impossible for all beachgoers to swim between the flags and says it delivers a range of programs to protect swimmers at other locations including remote emergency beacons, cameras, drones and roving patrols both on land and water.
In 2018, the organisation developed and released The Think Line campaign, which urged swimmers to draw an imaginary line in the sand and stop and check for rip currents and other dangers before entering the ocean. It also encouraged people to have a plan if something went wrong.
Brander is a huge fan of The Think Line and promotes it at all opportunities because “it’s not just about rips – it applies to all aspects of beach safety”. However, he’s disappointed it hasn’t received the attention and promotion it should.
“If you’re looking for a message to address unpatrolled beaches, we already have it – it’s called The Think Line,” he says. “It should be entrenched in our psyche as much as everyone knows you don’t cross the road without looking both ways.”
Marketing expert Sharyn Rundle-Thiele agrees there is room for more than one message.
“We’re in a world where different people need different messages,” says the director of social marketing at Griffith University.
“We should celebrate the success of the ‘Swim between the flags’ message … but we need to recognise the places where surf lifesaving can’t be and that space needs a different message.”
SLSA doesn’t disagree. In fact, it says while “‘Swim between the flags’ is iconic and a core message … the past six years have been clearly focused on The Think Line principles”.
“All messages are built and strengthened over time … however, more exposure and coverage always helps. Sadly, it is often the case that media interest to promote these messages only comes when tragedy strikes.”
