To mention some water safety issues we all need to know?

[Northernlurker]

Having read of some awful tragedies over the weekend with open water I thought I would start a thread with a few points and others can add. Because not everybody has had the same exposure to open water risks so what is common sense to one person is utterly unknown to others.

Open water in the UK is cold. Really cold. Even on sunny days. The deeper you go, the colder. This can take even fit and well people by surprise.

Don't jump in to unknown water ever. We are a rocky country populated by messy people. Water hides rocks, logs, metal and all manner of hazards.

Piers and jetty lead out from the shore to deep water so boats can be accessed. Don't regard them as an extension of the shore. The water will be both deep and cold.

Swim parallel to the shore, not out to sea.

No inflatables in the sea ever.

Tides move faster than you can walk, know what your exit route is.

If you can't swim, don't go out of your depth. Don't try and help people in trouble. You help just as much by fetching help or fetching items people in the water can hold on to.

Make sure your teenagers know these principles.

And remember 'float to live'

Just watching some float to live videos on youtube and I do wonder whether it would be better for there to be (as a minimum) annual/regular float to live sessions for children in school. I was an 80s primary school kid and remember having some lessons but I never really learned to swim far and just remember the focus was on technique and distance and retrieving objects from the bottom of the pool. I don’t remember ever doing float to live. I certainly can’t have done it frequently to not remember it. I do hope it’s different but it almost needs to be packaged like a first aid course maybe. The message I’m getting from these tragic situations is it doesn’t matter how strong a swimmer you are, you need to know what to do to survive if you get into trouble.

@Rainy365 That’s a really good question and I hope someone can answer. From 5 minutes of reading plus my own experience of swimming, the top layer is warmer no matter how deep (unless of course it’s so shallow that you’re entirely in the ‘top layer’ if that makes sense). As a child I spent summers on the Canadian lakes and I remember you would often hit a cold pocket while swimming; they were quite stable and you could literally swim in and out of them. I don’t think that was anything to do with a sudden drop in though as they occurred in areas of consistent depth.

It’s the fact that in some areas it’s a gradual wider slope down to 4m so people wading can control how deep they go and there is much more margin for error however in other parts it’s an almost vertical decline to 20m within a few steps of the shore. Like the people who died at Pulpit Rock. For a non swimmer it was like walking off a cliff.

Oh, I get that there’s a massive difference between gradual slope and drop off. It was more if there was a difference between drop off to 4m and drop off to 20m (I couldn’t see that there would be but was interested!)

What is it about so much swimwear being designed in blue???

Not that that helps with the majority of incidents involving people who weren't intending on a planned swim.

Ironically it’s probably because blue is associated with the colour of water / sea / all things nautical ! (I know water is not actually coloured blue but hopefully you know what I mean!)