The Red Triangle
If you’re an ocean faring individual, you probably already know what the infamous Red Triangle is: the region of from Bodega Bay, north of San Francisco, out slightly beyond the Farallon Islands, and down to the Big Sur region, south of Monterey.
It’s known for its “sharky” waters. And not just any sharks. The landlord: the Great White Shark.
For many, the thought of sharks never crosses their minds. For others, it terrifies them out of the water. And for a few, knowing sharks are in the water with them is part of the experience.
It’s part of the adrenaline rush. I hate to say it, but people get off on it…you’re with your friends, it’s absolutely beautiful, and yeah, it’s sharky. But for a lot of people that adds to it. — Royce Fraley
When faced with this information, people seem to naturally start wondering about the odds, which unfortunately wildly vary depending on the source. Numbers from 1 in 3,748,067 (for the general population) have been reduced to 1 in 25,641 (for the surfing population). As the population size used in your calculations shrinks, the odds quickly increase in favor to the landlord.
You hear these statistics about how unlikely shark attacks are, but the reality is if you take the core group of guys who surf up here, the odds of them getting attacked goes way, way up. They might have a 1 in 100 chance of getting attacked. — Scot Anderson
The odds of getting gobbled up within the Red Triangle is unbeknownst to us, but the area is the place where 38% of recorded shark attacks on humans in the United States takes place, which accounts for 11% of the worldwide total.
The numbers speak for themselves: getting attacked by a shark is rare, but not impossible for the surfing population, and as the frequency increases, so do your odds of a shark encounter. Some would go so far as to say it is likely in the Red Triangle.
Although tribal knowledge might keep the locals safe, it’s not a perfect science. It makes us think twice before letting our little groms out into the water.
So, there are sharks in the water and they do bite from time to time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go in the water. Surfing is described by some as “the greatest thing on earth.” We just need to be educated, informed, and safe about it. After all, the likeliness of a plane crashing is extremely small, but that doesn’t stop us from working around the clock to improve safety in that industry. Ocean going should be no different.
Red Triangle Technology is planning on solving these education, information, and safety issues with technology. We’re working on building unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e., drones) and state-of-the-art deep learning neural networks to help lifeguards and allow surfers to make informed decisions.
Aerial drones could be an important tool for reducing risk of shark attacks on our beaches within the coming years. — The Coversation
We’re excited to see others like us throughout the world pursuing a similar vision. A company from Australia developed a drone called “Little Ripper” that can detect sharks, researchers from Duke’s Marine Lab are studying shark detection techniques with drones, and countless amateur drone fliers have caught and shared video clips of accidental encounters.
The concept and technology is promising, but a number of technological and governmental challenges need to be addressed first, from flight automation and image recognition software to privacy and aviation law. These are the things that Red Triangle Technology is working on.
Red Triangle Technology was named after the Red Triangle because it’s where we call home, but we hope to provide a solution for all the sharky places on our little blue planet: California, Hawaii, Australia, South Africa, and others like these. We hope you follow us and stay tuned on our progress, or reach out to us to help.
In the coming months, we’ll be sharing more about our technology, our process, our company, our culture, everything in-between, and how we’re planning on bringing the number of unprovoked shark attacks as close to zero as possible, while having fun doing it.
