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Surfing with Dynamite

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The Myth
THIS MYTH WAS FEATURED IN...
Episode Title: Lead Balloon (#96)

Original air date: Jan. 23, 2008
Myth Title: Surfing with Dynamite


Myth Description: A video making its way around the internet shows people successfully using dynamite to create waves in a canal in order to surf.


MythBusters on the bust: Kari Byron, Tori Belleci, Grant Imahara


Hypothesis: Pressure from the shockwave of the exploding dynamite would displace enough water to create a wave of water upon which a person could surf.


Procedure/Experimental Design: Proof of Concept test by building a tank with water & causing explosions with the dry ice/water in a 2-liter bottle trick. They varied the depth of the "charges" to see if it had an effect on waves produced.

Next, Kari, Grant & Tori went to meet with a surfing instructor to learn to surf & get information on the concept of how surfing works. Then, they consult an underwater explosion expert & decide it is fatal to be in the water when an explosion occurs underwater. So, Grant builds a remote-control robot to surf for them.

The team then heads to a quarry lake for the full scale test. A quarry lake has no life in the water so they won't kill any animals. Settling on a charge of 200 lbs. of TNT at a depth of 12 ft., they place "robo-Grant" into the water and set off the charge.

Results: Even with 200 lbs. of TNT & an awesome explosion, the waves dissipate too quickly to be surfed. The waves just flow underneath the board.


Conclusion: Unlike the ocean, there is not enough water or mass to be displaced, no matter the force exerted, to create sustainable waves.


Busted or Not Busted: Busted
Fan Feedback

Highlights of the bust:






Best quotes by the MythBusters:






Your Scientific Method

Did the MythBusters get it right? How would you have busted this myth differently? Share your experiment design for how you would prove/disprove this myth:

  • A breaking wave formation requires a decreasing depth after the initial "surge." I wonder if the geometry of the quarry lake made it impossible for a successful result.


  • Actually when I saw the shape of the "lake" you were using, I saw that since "Grant" was coming into a bay that would have caused waveform cancellations that would have made the surge almost non-existant. I would redo the experiment with a uniformly circular shaped lake to do away from the wave cancellations so as to make the experiment a bit more controlled.


  • One thing i would do differently is not use a lake at all, looking at this "viral" video, they seem to be using a canal rather than a lake,
    using a lake seems to make it impossible to truly solve this myth, because
    in a lake there are far more directions for the wave to go, omni-directional
    If the team had used a canal, this wave would only have two directions to go
    front and back, meaning more energy could remain in the wave making it
    easier to surf from, I'll admit im no surfing expert but i do know a fair amount
    on waves, and in a cannal this would be far easier to test, even using extremely basic
    simulations, sontaining a wave within a canal channels the enerygy and increases the displacement. Though then again, it would be harder for the team to find a canal they could blow a bomb up in.

  • One of the biggest mistakes that was made in this myth is it was never proven that "Robogrant" could actually catch a wave. Though it was found that explosions in the water are deadly to those in it due to the shockwave, what effect would it have on the individual if they were actually laying on the board. Perhaps on of those items that measures the impact on buster would have clarified this. However if people can "wakesurf" from a boat that is heavily loaded in the back to maximize the wake size, it looked as if the waves were of comparable size.
See Also

Related myths: Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Related resources and reference pages: ----




Threads

Anonymous  (Get credit for your thread)
Started By Thread Subject Replies Last Post
jensjakob Depths of the lake they surfed in the video 1 Jun 28 2008, 2:46 AM EDT by amy_c
Thread started: Jun 27 2008, 5:50 PM EDT  Watch
Hi,
I live in Copenhagen where the viral video is from.

I can tell - they never surfed that lake - it is fake.

But, the depth of that lake is only about 280 centimeters - a lot different than the quarry lake that MB did the test in.
http://www.vejpark2.kk.dk/publikationer/pdf/443_Beskyttede%20Natur.pdf (Danish documentation of the lakes).

So - yes- MB should revisted, using a proper low-depth lake instead of a quarry.

/JJ
Show Last Reply
pyrokid bad test 2 Jun 25 2008, 11:02 AM EDT by PaperLuigi7
Thread started: Jun 22 2008, 5:38 PM EDT  Watch
I AM a surfer, and i can agree with everyone else here. if you look at the video, he only has about three sticks of dynamite. there are three main kinds of waves-point break, shore break, and reef break. this would be a shore break, which means that the bottom of the body of water has to rise as the wave progresses. when a tsunami is made from an earthquake, the shock wave starts at the bottom, then osculates between the surface and bottom. this wave has a certain amount of energy, so as the bottom rises the wave gets bigger because that energy brings the water up above the surface. mb needs to find a place that has as good bottom for surfing, and place the charge in the appropriate place.
RE VISIT
Show Last Reply
CaribbeanDoctorJay To deep & to slow. 0 May 30 2008, 9:32 AM EDT by CaribbeanDoctorJay
Thread started: May 30 2008, 9:32 AM EDT  Watch
I fully agree with the fact the water was too deep. In the You Tube clip you see the wave cresting as it reaches shallow water. Add to this the fact that the model surfer did have enough speed to catch the wave. Would it not have been a better idea to base the surfer around the remote controled surfers you can buy. See web site www.rcsurfrider.com
I believe this myth must be re-visited.
thundercatgm Too deep 2 Apr 9 2008, 4:12 AM EDT by amy_c
Thread started: Feb 12 2008, 9:41 PM EST  Watch
I think the problem with this myth was the depth of the water. Being that they were in a quarry the lake was probably 100+ feet deep. Much of the energy from the explosion would have been lost into the depth. I think if it was tried in a shallower body of water a much larger wave would have been produced with less dynamite.
3  out of 3 found this valuable. Do you?    
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Show Last Reply
OneLife4Music Lake & Geometry 0 Jan 31 2008, 1:43 AM EST by OneLife4Music
OneLife4Music
Thread started: Jan 31 2008, 1:43 AM EST  Watch
I have seen someone say that "robo-grant" did not have enough speed to successfully ride any wave that would have gone underneath it. I personally would not know since I have never surfed. However, I don't think any changes in the geometry is going to make a lot of difference. The lake, as well as the canal in which the video was supposedly shot, just do not have enough water in them to create a sustainable, "ride-able" wave without creating a shockwave or explosion that displaces any less than most, if not all, of the water within such a body. There is just not enough mass for the X% of the displaced water cresting over the surface to create a wave of ride-ability.

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