May 2013 (ROTM#53) Park Beach, Coffs Harbour, NSW Australia

There has been a lot of debate in the rip current world recently on what to call the different types of rips out there. We have ‘accretion’ rips, ‘low-energy’ rips, ‘open beach’ rips, ‘fixed’ rips, ‘transverse bar’ rips and ‘bar-gap’ rips which all really describe the same type of rip – one that sits in a deeper channel between two shallow sand bars. I would argue that this is by far the most common type of rip current on most surf coasts and the one that best looks like a path of dark water heading out through the whitewater of the breaking waves.

This picture is taken by John Andrews, who essentially runs the Australian Professional Ocean Lifeguard Association (APOLA) at his home beach in Coffs Harbour. It’s a classic rip, about 10 m wide, heading straight out to sea, and John was ecstatic to hear the term ‘bar-gap’ used to describe this type of rip at the recent Rip Current Symposium in Sydney in October 2012. He reckons it makes the most sense to the average person. So maybe we should listen to the professional lifeguards on this matter!

A rip is often a gap between bars = bar-gap rip?