I was once a very strong swimmer, and back then, I tried swimming 60 feet to shore in water with choppy, 6-inch waves. I wound up repeatedly inhaling water and choking. To combat this, I tried to keep my head high above the water, which was exhausting. After 30 feet, it was clear I was in real trouble, so I called to the rowboat shadowing me 5 feet away and they towed me to shore.
Similarly, cold water will shut me down frighteningly fast—even with a wetsuit and lifejacket, I've been stunned into near immobility after less than a minute of swimming. And I'm somebody who grew up swimming in the Gulf of Maine, which can be frigid (because Cape Cod deflects the warmer Gulf Stream eastward). The actual risk here is cold shock, not hypothermia—rapid vasoconstriction in your limbs will flood your core with blood, causing your heart to work much harder to maintain circulation. It's incredibly draining.
A life-jacket will keep your head above water with minimal exertion. This means that (a) you keep breathing and (b) you remain visible to rescuers. It turns survival from an incredibly strenuous and terrifying athletic event into largely passive floating.
When I finally starting doing some swimming in a pool I was amazed at how much easier it was to swim. Especially maintaining momentum. I also swim quite frequently without a board in open water when the waves are small, but there is still light chop and although it's surprising how slow it is I've never felt it was particularly difficult. Interesting how things work much differently transitioning the other way.
Also when you talk about wetsuit, it sounds like you haven't used a good/thick wetsuit. Or maybe this was a while ago. Wetsuit technology has been pushed really far in the last 5 years. Dry suits have always been good thanks to the military, but sports wetsuits have really progressed a lot with the explosion of the surf industry. I stay in the water easily twice as long now than I did with my first suit I bought five years ago.
My wetsuit is good but relatively light, and I was testing it under controlled circumstances. I'm a river kayaker, a sport which involves working hard in warm air before suddenly getting plunged into a cold river. It's the sudden transition that can cause cold shock:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_shock_response
http://www.seakayak.ws/kayak/kayak.nsf/0/9ABAF7D7992B8205852...
The second link mentions cases of sea kayakers who were dead within seconds of overturning. Cold shock happens much faster than hypothermia.
Fortunately, both of my misadventures happened under controlled circumstances with a backup plan. But in both cases, I was surprised and scared at how quickly I lost my ability to swim. The interactive video we're discussing actually captures the feeling pretty well.
I can confirm this. When I was about 16 - 17 yo (and I was very fit at the time) we went sailing with 2 of my friends on a 8 ft sailboat in Nha Trang, Vietmam. About a mile out from the shoreline the boat capsized.
We were very foolish not bringing any life-jackets. After 20 - 25 minutes trying to swim back to the shore in the afternoon's high tide and high wind one of my friend had a leg cramp. We were so lucky that we had an Igloo watercooler to tether to and relied on the wind to bring us ashore. My friend died 6 months later from cancer in California.
The other guy clung to the capsized boat and also relied the wind to bring him ashore. He ended up 5 miles from the original spot we launched the boat.
First rule: If the boat didn't sink, never abandon it. It is relatively easy for a rescue helicopter to find a capsized boat. Not so easy to spot someone swimming. Also, you can probably manage to stay out of the water on top of the hull.
If the boat sank, stay all together next to the biggest piece of floating debris.
Source: sailing license exam. :P
As someone who routinely goes swimming in a hole cut in ice with the water temperature typically around 1C, this sounds weird. I suppose it's a reaction you can teach your body to not have?
With no exertion, depending on conditions. Lifejackets should be able to support an unconscious casualty.
Fun class, but I shouldn't have taken it in a poorly insulated gym at 8 am Winter Quarter. Brrr.
I'm in the Royal Navy. We practice a man overboard every time we sail and we critique each one. We even restrict movement on the upper deck after dark. We're professional sailors who live at sea - if you take a yacht out with a friend and you haven't been to sea since last summer you need to practice your man overboard drills.
Well done! :)
No kidding. I only noticed after it was over how much I was sweating. It was pretty powerful.
wget https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/guy-cotten/videos/guy_cot...
Hope that helps someone.
Won't play in a reasonably secured Firefox 35 on Linux. "This operation is insecure" - main.js:6 Because a huge function is on one line, it's hard to diagnose the problem.
Why does a website need cookies in order to show me a video?
Also, there's a nice double-meaning in the French version of the title. "Sortie en mer" means "sea trip", but taken word-for-word, it could also mean "trip in the sea".
I suppose the whole thing is well made and everybody gets to see Charles waving goodbye and laughing right before the character drowns.
Is that something that really happens?
Also makes for a good cringe factor to make the simulation feel even more real.
EDIT: Ok, you scroll up. For some reason, it didn't work for me last time I've seen this.
5m02s. But you cannot win in this (not)game. Splendidly done.
So I don't think general UX/video guidelines apply in this case, even if they're valid for most cases for online video.
Sure, they should probably have used an adaptive bitrate video for users with poor connection, because here they can't pause and let the video prebuffer for a while. Other than that this is pretty impressive
You are applying heuristics that are true for man websites, but don't apply here. I would say this is more like a simple video game. It would make no sense for example to have navigation control over this video. That is the point, you can't just rewind to before the accident occurred.
EDIT: Not that I actually think its a bad UI. But either way its not always about the UI.
