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The Strid: The ‘deadliest stretch of water’
- jollyllama 4y agoIs there like a really rough cross-diagram of this feature anywhere?
- Taywee 4y ago> The most infamous life claimed by the stride is William de Romilly, the son of Lady Alice de Romilly, who owned the land. He was said to have been swallowed by the Strid in 1152 after trying to leap across. Why was he infamous? I'm not finding much information on him at all.
- jonasdegendt 4y agoThe Tom Scott video referenced below claims William was supposed to be the future king of Scotland, I did no further fact checking though.
- mod 4y agoI think the death was infamous, not the kid.
- FridayoLeary 4y agoThat is a genuine Yorkshire accent (i'm not sure which part), for those that are wondering. At least i think it is.
- slowhand09 4y agoDump barrels of an environmentally friendly surfactant upstream, thus neutralizing the bubbles, foam, and froth temporarily.
- koheripbal 4y agoNo way to get rid of the peat stain.
- slantaclaus 4y agoTom Scott introduced me to the Strid. God I love his content
- tptacek 4y agoTo save a click: the "100% mortality" thing is a local legend. There are videos of people swimming it (not deliberately: it's a rapids, and they've fallen out of boats).
- Exuma 4y agoThe place where they are swimming is the part where its 5 meters deep. Upstream it's 65+ meters deep, and when you watch the video there appears to be a zero chance anyone could survive that (watch the other videos down in the article)
- tptacek 4y agoI 100% believe it's a very unsafe place to swim; it's a rapids, after all.
- jupp0r 4y agoPeople have swum down Niagara Falls. How can you possibly say it's "impossible" to survive this?
- jupp0r 4y agoThere are tons of videos of people kayaking this creek [1], some with people exiting their kayaks and swimming in it and not dying. When did HN become a place where extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence get defended by downvoting reasonable doubts? [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPUPxPfFHw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPUPxPfFHw
- theteapot 4y agoPlease don't make light of The Strid by describing it as a mere "creek". One video does not make "tons". Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence! This video is clearly fake, or if not perhaps the kayakers in this singular video are some kind of immortal demigods.
- kuschku 4y ago
- joncp 4y agoIn case you haven't already seen Tom Scott's video about it: https://youtu.be/mCSUmwP02T8 https://youtu.be/mCSUmwP02T8 .
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoIt's embedded in TFA
- xeromal 4y agoThe fucking article?
- noSyncCloud 4y agoThe featured article.
- scubakid 4y agoIt doesn't look particularly fast-moving, so I must be missing something here that accounts for the legendary 100% mortality rate. Unless there's a giant vortex of electric eels, this stretch of water looks tamer than what those extreme kayakers were up to in HBO's recent docuseries.
- 4y ago
- kazinator 4y agoDid you mean "deceptive" or "treacherous"?
- tomcam 4y agodecepcherous
- the_sleaze_ 4y agotreacheptive
- Exuma 4y agoConsidering the very definition of "deceptive" is "apt or tending to deceive," which is the word I used, I'd say what I used is fine.
- kazinator 4y agoBut it came out as "deceiving"; check the title.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoI understood the meaning and it seems like you and everyone else here did too. It may not be the word you would have chosen but that's life.
- kazinator 4y agoHN submission titles can be improved based on feedback, which is one of the functions of comments. As you can see, the usage no longer appears in the title. The meaning being understandable isn't an effective criterion for good writing, because even egregiously poor writing with multiple errors of grammar, spelling and word usage can often be understood.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jeff-davis 4y agoMythbusters: looks like a job for "Buster" (the crash dummy).
- danielvaughn 4y agoI remember seeing a few videos on this, it's super interesting because there are accounts of how dangerous it is, going back hundreds of years. Fascinating stuff.
- SamPatt 4y ago>He was said to have been swallowed by the Strid in 1152 after trying to leap across. As an American it's always startling to casually see a date that far back in history, and know a specific event such as the death of a child was recorded, and has been remembered for nearly a thousand years.
- AceJohnny2 4y agoAs the joke goes: "In the US, 100 years is a long time, in Europe, 100 miles is a long way"
- koheripbal 4y agoI routinely drive 10 hours in the US for week long vacations with the kids. My European relatives can't even believe it when I tell them. They think driving that long is some superhuman ability. I'm quite content listening to my history podcast for 10 hours.
- laurencerowe 4y agoAs a Brit now living in California I agree with your sentiment but a 10 hour drive for a week long trip was pretty routine in my childhood, usually once or twice a year. Either visiting family in Cornwall (400 mile, 12 hour trip when we were young kids before the roads were improved, 8 hours when we were older) or camping holidays in France (usually two weeks.)
- skerit 4y agoI'm from Belgium. Anything over 50 km (30 miles) away should ideally be turned into a weekend-long trip
- RajT88 4y agoYep. I regularly drive 46 miles to visit my wife's family. The roads are long and straight, and the speed limits quite high. We get passed on the highway when we're doing 120km/h. I don't imagine you can maintain those kinds of speeds on account of speed limits and winding roads. Possibly takes an hour or three?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pmarreck 4y agoAn experienced scuba diver should go down there with a bright light and a camera... and a rope leading back to the surface
- RajT88 4y agoA similarly mad plan would be draining it. Create a bypass and then pump out the water from the deep pockets and see what's in there. I imagine there's some political challenges to that, but from an engineering perspective it's old hat. High likelihood of being sued and shut down by the local government, but low likelihood of anyone dying.
- stubish 4y agoTry a drone first. And after that gets smashed against the rock walls, try a different plan.
- mint2 4y agoThe one tiny issue with that plan is that if they are an experienced scuba diver and were given that request then they’d they’d nope the hell out of the vicinity faster than a human can blink. By definition any scuba diver attempting that is either the most inexperienced one in existence or suicidal.
- dizzant 4y agoThe appearance of this article on HN strikes an uncanny valley for me. I independently recalled and told a friend about this river just a few hours ago, having not thought of it or done any digital interactions with the idea in probably more than a year. I searched it on DDG to show a picture. Now, suddenly, it’s #3 on HN. Am I going mad? Is the surveillance state so deep in my subconscious that I fail to notice it’s observations? This article isn’t even tech related, why is it here?
- morpheos137 4y agoThis happens to me frequently too. Think of something obscure then it appears on HN. It is neither coincidence or surveillance. Reality is an information fractal.
- reb 4y agoEither we’re all living in your dream (not terribly likely from my perspective) or you’ve stumbled upon one of life’s great joys: the so-called “delusion of reference”, a fun trick our minds like to play on us sometimes. Congrats on your unsettling coincidence :)
- morpheos137 4y agoDelusions of reference should be statistically verifiable as delusions. Has anybody ever tried? For starters how many thoughts does a typical human have in a day?
- jschveibinz 4y agoYou are not going mad. Now, just relax. The HN interface to your brain waves is a little noisy right now, and it works better when you are relaxed... /s
- onethought 4y agoOr your friend is the OP?
- sbierwagen 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader%E2%80%93Meinhof_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader%E2%80%93Meinhof_phenome...
- wikitopian 4y agoJavaScript Creek
- modeless 4y agoOT: Am I wrong in thinking the correct word to use here would be "deceptive" instead of "deceiving"? "Deceiving" in this context just sounds wrong to me but I feel like I'm suddenly hearing it a lot these days.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoDeceptive is the better word as it's passive, deceiving is more active. I think they're both technically correct, but there's a nuance in their meaning.
- jhanschoo 4y agoThey are words that have come to English via different routes. "Deceiving" is the present participle of "to deceive", with the earliest common ancestor being the Latin noun decipio. The passive past participle of this noun in Latin is "deceptum", and on this form it is common to derive an adjective with a postfix "-ivus", hence "deceptivus". This word then enters English in a parallel manner, giving "deceptive". In this case they have identical meaning in context, but there's frequently unpredictable semantic drift in these pairs, if both do end up in English.
- jhanschoo 4y agoSmall correction: > The passive past participle of this noun should read > The perfect passive participle of this verb
- SteveNuts 4y ago"Deceivingly dangerous" would sound better, imo
- brigandish 4y agoIf only because of the novelty in that phrasing, but ascribing some kind of (nefarious) intention to an object is a common rhetorical technique.
- jupp0r 4y ago> 100% mortality rate Not if you count kayaking[1]. In general I doubt that this is more dangerous than other whitewater creeks. They are all death traps that people can't normally survive swimming in, especially if it's hard to get out. The article seems to be based more on local legend than actual facts. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPUPxPfFHw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPUPxPfFHw edit: different video, there are really lots of them folks
- bell-cot 4y ago> 100% mortality rate Translation for pedants: Lots of people die - especially know-it-all idiots, thrill-seekers, and show-offs. We locals - whose taxes pay for the paperwork & such after each death, by the way - are utterly sick of it. Go earn your bloody Darwin Award somewhere else, arsehole.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- leaflets2 4y ago> can't normally survive swimming in What about with life jackets?
- Thorrez 4y agoIs that the Strid? They don't say the name of the location in the video or in the description. It also looks a bit different to me than the pictures and videos of the Strid.
- jupp0r 4y agoIf you Google "whitewater strid" there are many videos of people kayaking it. Here's another one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPUPxPfFHw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MkPUPxPfFHw
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- aaron695 4y ago
- db1234 4y agoThis reminds me of 'mekedatu' ('The Goat Cross') gorge in the path of river Kaveri in India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekedatu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekedatu. The water here is similarly deceptive making it extremely dangerous. Many lives have been lost.
- kart23 4y agoIt would be pretty cool to send an underwater drone down there, with power/video line to the surface, so it would be pretty lightweight and enough illumination to see in the water.
- TT-392 4y agoI kinda doubt you'd get any useful control with those currents. Might as well just drop a camera in there on a rope or a stick (which has already been done).
- Nursie 4y agoI’ve been thinking about a Gladius “Chasing Dory” for a while as they are comparatively reasonably priced. But even at a few hundred bucks I don’t think I’d want to risk it in there!
- hirvi74 4y agoA YouTuber named, "Jack A Snacks" stuck a camera down the Strid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot8lr_5oHE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot8lr_5oHE4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPO7cxHJgvw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPO7cxHJgvw Looks absolutely brutal.
- rob74 4y agoIf you compare the above-surface parts of the video to the pictures from the article, you notice that the pictures were taken at "high water", where the gorge is filled up to the brim. In the video, there is at least one meter of near-vertical wall visible, so it doesn't look like an innocuous stream anymore.
- jakzurr 4y agoReally, really creepy to watch. I kept gritting my teeth when he was climbing on the mossy rocks, wondering how easy it would be to join his camera. :(
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- osrec 4y agoInteresting story: my parents had a fashion business in Yorkshire, and one of their regular customers asked them to produce a t-shirt with the words "I jumped the strid" on it. We had no idea what the words meant. Turns out, in Yorkshire, jumping the strid was a way to express your love to your girlfriend. We got a few of those t-shirts made, and were surprised by the number of 50+ year old couples that bought them that summer!
- slantaclaus 4y agoIf my wife jumped over the Strid to prove her love for me I would assume it to mean the opposite
- rob74 4y agoSo you either jump the Strid or, failing that, you cross the Jordan (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Crossing%20Jordan https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Crossing%20J...), in which case you won't need a T-Shirt anymore...
- chrisshroba 4y agoOr you cross the river Styx [1], depending which mythology you believe. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styx https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styx
- anyonecancode 4y agoOr the River on Which Nothing Floats (referencing Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty, which I just finished. Liu is the American translator for Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem, which has been discussed on HN, so other HN readers might be interested to learn that he also has his own fiction) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Liu#Novels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Liu#Novels
- TylerE 4y agoOr the Rubicon
- NGRhodes 4y agoI live 15 miles from there, its a beautiful, popular area, that is easily accessible via nearby carparks and riverside paths, so great for family visits. There are more challenging routes on the surrounding hills and moors, so attracts a variety of people there to enjoy the outdoors, its common for the large carparks to be completely full. I can't comment on the mortality rate at the Strid, the photos and videos do not do justice of how dramatic it is and how loud the water is where it escapes from the narrows. You only have to go a short distance downstream (1/4 mile) and there are safe paddling spots after the river widens again.
- spookierookie 4y agoShouldn't at least this section be cordoned off?
- spacedcowboy 4y agoIn the uk we tend to just put up a sign. If you ignore the sign, that shit’s on you. Of course, there also might not be a sign, sometimes it comes down to “don’t do stupid crap”. Again, on you.
- kelsolaar 4y ago65 meters deep measured by the person in the second video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJFQXT6PIP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJFQXT6PIP8
- Anon4Now 4y agoIf you liked that, go to his Strid playlist and watch the one where he films underwater. Watching it, you can imagine how terrifying it would be to get sucked under water. Very creepy.
- secondcoming 4y agoBut that reading was invalid due to bubbles in the water
- melonrusk 4y agoIn a later video he goes back and checks with a better sonar, and gets the same results. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDskXBfyNes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDskXBfyNes
- fuzzfactor 4y ago>The area is unfathomably deep Regardless, seems like never a more suitable description could be made.
- collyw 4y agoDoesn't look like 100% mortality rate to me. This guy is pretty shit in a kayak, but his friends knew what to do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_q8KiEfW7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_q8KiEfW7k
- trustingtrust 4y agoI thought the water itself was so impure that if you drink it then the mortality rate is 100%. That’s what the title suggested to me. But turns out it’s the river thats dangerous.
- muzani 4y agoRarely is the article more interesting than the title hints.
- lbriner 4y agoThis article is from 2021 but this was on HN 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16166419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16166419
- gnfargbl 4y agoOn the history page of York Sub-Aqua club, they refer to members having regularly gone diving in the "Stridd" at Bolton Abbey in years gone past [1]. The only other reference I can find to diving in the Strid is in Youtube comments [2], which apparently suggest that the dives stopped some decades ago. Anyone know differently? EDIT: More at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUamSryCUK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUamSryCUK4, but sadly without progess as reported at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDskXBfyNes#t=179 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDskXBfyNes#t=179. [1] https://york-diving.co.uk/index.php/history/ https://york-diving.co.uk/index.php/history/ [2] https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/scuba-divers-say-yorkshires-killer-21614095 https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/scub...
- GistNoesis 4y agoSome youtuber tried to sonar it to get the depth and also tried throwing some video camera in it but it's muddy and turbulent so it's hard to get the big picture of how it works. What would really be cool would be to have the 3d geometry of the river, and run it through water simulation software ; put a rag-doll in and see how the current would pull you down. Constructing the 3d geometry is probably an interesting engineering challenge. Although there exists some off the shelf underwater lidar solutions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YevvMcc6Zu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YevvMcc6Zu4 and underwater drones, it's likely to be too turbulent (and with air bubble) for them to stay in place at a known position to work properly out of the box (but maybe not because it seems to be possible to scuba dive the strid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUamSryCUK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUamSryCUK4).
- TylerE 4y agoTemporary dam/diversion?
- koheripbal 4y agoThis is what I was thinking. Divert and I bet it would be a treasure trove of archeological findings.
- madaxe_again 4y agoWith the way things are going, the easiest route will likely be to wait for summer in a few years time, and to do it whilst it’s dry. It has dropped to record low levels several times in the last few years, revealing much of the absolutely tortured pothole-ridden geology beneath, and the drainage which feeds it is failing to get replenished year on year.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- thih9 4y agoDid anyone try throwing an airtag / other location device there? Would it reappear in some river or would it get stuck underground?
- tux3 4y agoNatural river water is going to absorb the airtag's Bluetooth signal, it'll lose tracking very quickly unless it stays near a phone at all times. You could chuck hundreds of iphones into the river along the airtag. I hear they're waterproof to some decent depth
- thisisnotanexit 4y agoAs soon as I saw the headline I thought that it sounds like something Tom Scott would create a video about... and then there is his video right in the article.
- jawadch93 4y ago[dead]
- marcodiego 4y ago> Local legend has it that 100 percent of the people who have fallen into the Bolton Strid have died. Official statics, anyone?
- helipad 4y agoIt always warms my heart that The Strid is internet famous. My memory is walking by it and my grandad, not one for hyperbole, telling us how dangerous it was. Miss you gramps!
- sam1r 4y agoIt would be an epic demonstration to Crash test a fleet of iPhone 14’s and verify their waterproof capabilities. I’ve seen many demonstrations since iPhone 12 of people just recording video in their fish tank.
- hiidrew 4y agoThe Strid's calm apperance is what scares me (calm at least from the photos, I imagine it's loud in person). Would admire from afar, avoid any off chance of slipping in.
- daveslash 4y agoYeah. That Youtube video of the guy testing the depth with a fishing rod... builds my anxiety just watching him get that close. If that were a 2,000ft cliff instead of water, I wouldn't get half that close! Knowing how deadly the water is... one slip... anxiety building.....