Great White Shark Attack Paddle vs Pedal Numbers

[PAL]

After the recent great white strike on two Hobies, a lot of people blamed the pedal drive. I wanted to see for myself how the numbers stack up. I've kept pretty good records of all the white shark on kayak strikes in California since the first attack on an angler in 2007. It was time for an update anyway.

Give it a look. Since 2007, the score stands at 7 paddlers vs. 5 pedalers. If we limit it to kayak anglers only, it's 5 pedalers and 4 paddlers. That leads me to believe it doesn't matter what you drive if you come across an aggressive shark at the wrong time. In case you're interested, there have been 17 great white attacks on kayaks since 1989, far fewer than on surfers and swimmers. Of those 17 incidents, two fatalities are more or less documented. Otherwise injuries are incredibly rare.

Since I posted these numbers in a story for Kayak Fish Magazine, many people have rightly pointed out that it would be instructive to compare the raw attack numbers vs. the proportion of each kayak type.

Until kayak manufacturers and dealers release that closely guarded information, we're at the mercy of on the water observation. Of course the proportion varies across the state.

Completely subjectively, on a typical day Hobies outnumber paddle kayaks by at least 3 to 1 at La Jolla. In a Facebook post Jason Self put the number about the same up in Trinidad, 3 Hobies for every one paddle kayak, but he was talking about anglers (I think).

Scroll down for that great white shark attack on kayaks in California listing I compiled. I attached it so you can all download it if you like. I invite you guys to take the data apart, all of it, not just the paddle vs. pedal question. Any statisticians here?

I'm also looking to fill in a couple blanks on the spreadsheet and for additional information such as water clarity, whether anglers had fish on board (personally I don't think it matters), if they were using sonar at the time, etc.

Here's the most pertinent part of my story for Kayak Fish Magazine:

Check out the chart beginning with the tragic case of Tamara McAllister and Roy J. Stoddard, who were presumably killed by a great white strike off of Malibu’s Paradise Cove in 1989. We could tally paddle versus pedal statistics from there (it’s 12 paddle, 5 pedal if you must know), but it wouldn’t make any sense. Hobie’s Mirage Drive wasn’t introduced until 1997. Another decade passed before a great white shark hit one of the company’s kayaks. Let’s start there.

Back to Dan Prather, whose red Adventure was the first Hobie attacked. The next two kayakers to feel the heat (both in 2008) were paddlers, recreationalist Bettina Pereira at Catalina and sea kayaker Tony Johnson off Tomales Head.

2009 was a quiet year, but August 2010 was tough. Adam Coca was hit hard at Bean Hollow, and a great white mouthed the bow of Duane Strosaker’s sea kayak offshore of Gaviota (yes, his legs were inside the shark’s mouth, inside his boat), a couple of particularly harrowing incidents. Both paddlers. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s one pedal kayak and four paddle kayaks since 2007.

From there, it’s neck and neck between the two propulsion types. Harry Pali was pedaling off Pigeon Point when his kayak was hit in 2011. Joey Nocchi was paddling off Leffingwell Landing the next year. Mel Camu was pedaling; Micah Flansburg and an as yet unidentified man related to a kayak angler known only by the handle FlyYaker both paddled. That takes us up to the Vandenberg duo, who both pedaled.

If you kept up, you already know the score since 2007 stands at 7 paddle, 5 pedal – all of the flipper variety. Prop-style pedal drives are relatively rare on western saltwater. None have been hit by a great white. Counting anglers only, the numbers swing to 5 pedal, 4 paddle. Inconclusive? From here it looks like what you drive isn’t the determining factor.

Here's the link to the entire story: http://www.kayakfishmag.com/features...r-great-white/

[flemdogg]

Informative, in depth, and very interesting. Thank you for the info.

[YTHunter]

Went out at LJ yesterday... no one for miles around.

Anyway, wonder if/how kayak color factors in.

[FISH11]

Same here. It was super hard to make any bait. So I trolled a rapala, not much fun trying to avoid the lobster trap buoys and the floating cut up kelp. No hits and finally found some spanish late and went deeper to try some more. Just lost 3 in a row to the knucklehead dogs. trolled and drifted for a couple more hours and nothing. After finding the bait late I did see some bait jumping so I threw a surface iron, but nothing. Was on the water from 8am to 5:30 with no luck. Still had fun drinking beer and enjoying the sights on a very calm day.

[blitzburgh]

Good stuff Paul!

[pbb]

As someone with a stats background (Ph.D. in Sociology with a quantitative focus, M.A. in Demography), I would agree that there is nothing here that suggests any conclusive "statistically significant" differences by propulsion method.

The OP is correct that you would really need to know how many people are out there in these types of kayaks at risk of getting attacked to do the analysis correctly.

In fact, you would ideally need to know not only what kind of kayaks are out there in consumers' hands, but how much they use them. In other words, if you had 1000 people with Hobie mirage kayaks and 1000 people with paddle kayaks, and the mirage drive kayakers spend twice as much time on the water as people with paddle kayaks, you would expect them to experience twice as the number of shark attacks even if the rate of shark attacks was exactly the same.

[da22y]

Originally Posted by YTHunter

Went out at LJ yesterday... no one for miles around.

Anyway, wonder if/how kayak color factors in.

I was out in LJ yesterday too, 5 feet long hammerhead shark circle my yellow Hobie revo more than 3 times, I had my home make kage at hand , finally I smash my fishing pole on the water very hard, and the hammerhead shark dart away...

The shark look at me eyeball to eyeball, very scary moment...

[jruiz]

I just had to

[PAL]

Originally Posted by YTHunter

Went out at LJ yesterday... no one for miles around.

Anyway, wonder if/how kayak color factors in.

Since you asked...

I also broke down the attacks by kayak color. They span the spectrum. I'm sticking with brighter colors such as orange and yellow. Boaters are the greater danger.

Lame chart attached below. If sharks are color blind as one researcher discovered (I'm not sure about great whites), then contrast could be the crux of the matter. If that's the case and we're really looking at brighter kayaks vs. darker the chart could be read as 7 light vs. 4 dark, although I'm not sure of the actual shade of some of those reported colors.

The story in case you want to read it: http://www.kayakfishmag.com/features...olor-question/

[chris138]

The variable that sticks out to me are the dates of attacks. It appears that an attack has become significantly more likely in the last 4-5 years. That could be a function of more people being on the water kayaking, or perhaps an increase in GWS population as a result of more modern conservation efforts.