Shark Shield review for Kite Surfing

Well I've had it sitting in the box for the last 8 weeks waiting for the first chance to get out onto the water. Today we had the WAKSA Opening Season event, a downwinder from City Beach to Brighton Beach in Perth. Very timely because we had a shark attack at Brighton/Scarborough two days ago and one of the crew here, Dale Stanton, saw a shark yesterday at this same beach while kiting. Today I was trialing a new harness which gave me grief plus I was underpowered and so ended up spending a lot of time in the water. It certainly gave me every opportunity to test the unit out thoroughly

I bought the shark shield because I have a fear of being eaten, based on the fact that I've been fishing around here and have seen some monsters caught. They are there and I know when I'm kite surfing, if I fall off the board then I'm a sitting duck, dressed up looking like a seal and being dragged through the water like a lure.

I bought the "Freedom 4" Shark Shield distributed by SeaChange Technology in South Australia. This has 4 hours of battery life. The "Freedom 2" has 2 hours of life and is virtually the same size and weight. The battery sits in a velcro pouch which wraps around your ankle and trails a 2m cord (about 1cm diametre). The unit emits an electric pulse once every 0.5 seconds. As the battery goes flat the same strength discharge occurs but at a slower rate. If you put your fingers about 10 cm from it you can clearly feel your skin muscles twitch. If you touch it its uncomfortable and you probably won't want to do it again.

The unit weights about 200g in water and was hardly noticable. There was no drag noticable from trailing the cord.

With new gear problems and light wind I spend a lot of time body dragging back to recover my boad. I must have had 30 restarts and in all this had only one instance where the shark shield became annoying. I was trying hard to keep both feet in the straps and pull the board around and it really pissed me off to have to give up and let it go. The cord was just drapped over my bare wet foot and giving it a bolt every 0.5 seconds. You can't fight electricity for very long but 1 instance in 30 restarts is hardly a problem.

I didn't wear booties today and a number of times when my trailing foot got a kick of electricity. On one occasion it was enough of a jolt for me to lose my footing and I lost it once again. Hahaha. That really pissed me off too. But these things served to reasure me that the unit was certainly working and it really was a trivial thing.

So what did it do for my confidence? Well I haven't actually seen my particular unit repel a shark yet so I'm putting a lot of faith in the testimonials of other people in trusting it works. I don't enjoy going out far from shore as every second thought is about the shadows near me. But today, with the Shark Shield, I had a fantastic time and spent the whole time at least several hundred metres from shore. And considering there was a shark attack here 2 days ago and Ryland saw a shark here yesterday, I think that speaks volumes.

In summary, I'm extremely happy to be wearing the unit and intend to keep using it to do more open ocean kiting. It didn't cause me any inconvenience however I think I will wear my booties next time to avoid my trailing leg getting a twitch. And just complete the picture I intend to trial my own unit in the shark tank at feeding time - just to be sure.

I'm happy to answer any questions, on-line or off-line.
Graeme Speak
gls@central-data.net
Perth

It must be something about dudes called Luke.

I was thinking the exact same thing.