
Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea - 32faction
http://sortieenmer.com
======
ekidd
Very nicely done, technically. And the marketing message is both true and
useful: Swimming at sea is surprisingly hard, and life jackets make a huge
difference.

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.

~~~
puzzlingcaptcha
Life jacket is good, but in higher seas one of the main problems (assuming the
crew remaining on board is actually competent) is visibility - consider
investing into something like a dan buoy
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMGWk6s9G4k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMGWk6s9G4k)

~~~
nradov
Better visibility is helpful but even that doesn't do much in rough conditions
or at night. Many of us scuba divers now carry Nautilus radios which include a
GPS receiver and 2-way VHF marine radio with distress beacon. I bring mine
whenever I go out on the ocean, even when I'm not diving.
[http://www.nautiluslifeline.com/nautilus_lifeline](http://www.nautiluslifeline.com/nautilus_lifeline)

~~~
shiggerino
DSC (digital selective calling), which that radio uses to transmit distress
signals with coordinates, is an excellent but sadly under-used technology.
Everyone should be equipped with it and be familiar with all the menus and
options on their transceivers, and regularly test that the equipment is
working by making routine calls. The problem with DSC is that the transceivers
are really badly designed and downright user-hostile. The receiver usually
gets a loud horn going of in their ears which only trains a reflex to reach
for the silence button. It's pretty much only used for tests, and before
anyone dares initiate a DSC call they call the receiving ship in advance the
old-fashioned way, or they will get yelled at. When the whole point of DSC is
that you merely enter the recipient's MMSI number, open a channel and just
speak, without cluttering up channel 16 which is should be left for distress
traffic only. Think Uhura in Star Trek. This is a huge risk to safety of life
at sea that the industry urgently needs to deal with. But yes, do carry the
equipment and do use it in an emergency, because it does work and it frees up
yours and your rescuers' workload to worry about more important things than
trying to get your coordinates across by voice.

I would also suggest getting a SART and an EPIRB. A SART is a radar beacon,
which shows up as a distinctive pattern on surrounding ships' radar displays,
and requires no special receiving equipment. An EPIRB is a beacon that is
locatable by satellite, so that's the fastest and most reliable way to get the
attention of a rescue control centre. These three technologies are part of the
GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress and Safety System), which means commercial
ships and emergency services are by law required to carry and use equipment to
receive their signals.

~~~
endgame
In Australia, to call the Rescue Coordination Centre on HF, you HAVE to use
DSC: [http://www.amsa.gov.au/search-and-rescue/distress-and-
safety...](http://www.amsa.gov.au/search-and-rescue/distress-and-safety-
comms/amsa-hfdsc-network/)

> If a vessel wishes to conduct a radiotelephony communication with the
> network, it is necessary to make initial contact via a DSC call. For safety
> or routine messages a shift to a working frequency is normally required.

When I did my training, they pushed DSC very hard.

Nit: You mention ch16 as being for distress traffic only, but my radio
handbook also lists it for carrying urgency and safety messages, and as a
routine calling channel (and then you move to a working channel and get out of
the way).

Also: What crazy part of the world plays clutters ch16 with music?

~~~
shiggerino
Yes, that is true, 16 is also for urgency and safety messages, but ideally
channel 70 should supersede 16 as the routine calling channel. Of course, for
that to happen the equipment has to be made actually user friendly. It would
be trivial to implement the software to let the OOW simply click an AIS target
on the ECDIS to have that target's MMSI entered into the transceiver and a
call initiated. If ships were running on free software someone would have
already done that, sent a pull request to the ECDIS software maintainer, have
it pass perfectly repeatable and transparent integration test suites to make
sure the patch won't make the ship go keel up, and Bob's your uncle. But for
some reason people seem afraid of this proposition.

As for music, last time I heard that was in the Java sea, but Americans aren't
much better, making securité calls when moving their Bayliners, or the USCG
with their incessant babble about irrelevant things.

~~~
endgame
Not everyone's got AIS and ECDIS though. The places where I trained really
pushed DSC for fishing and recreational use, by making it relevant to the
little guys too: "If you'd just found a good fishing spot or a nice quiet
place, why would you go blabbing to everyone about it on ch16? Call your mate
up on DSC instead." They also made a point of telling people to spend that bit
extra to get a radio that doesn't suck. Buying a cheap transceiver and having
to input a MMSI using up/down/enter/back is really annoying and doesn't help
take-up at all.

Speaking of AIS, did you see this thing from a couple of years back:
[http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-
intelligence/v...](http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-
intelligence/vulnerabilities-discovered-in-global-vessel-tracking-systems/) ?

~~~
shiggerino
That's true. But it does help a lot that there's a merchant ship equipped with
these things as well as a fast rescue boat if you're ever in distress.
Furthermore, writing free software for the big ships will also help the little
guys too, even if it means running the software on a laptop for extra
situational awareness.

As for security, yes, this is a problem. It's the same in aviation with ADS-B,
completely unauthenticated messages that the on-board software will happily
digest,[1] whether it's to mislead the pilots or find some vulnerability in
the avionics software to exploit. How can this be anything but gross
negligence on the part of both the regulatory committees and the industry at
large?

1\. [http://www.esecurityplanet.com/network-security/security-
fla...](http://www.esecurityplanet.com/network-security/security-flaws-found-
in-ads-b-air-traffic-control-system.html)

------
joshontheweb
When I was a boy scout we were taught to take off our pants, tie knots in them
and fill them with air either by blowing or by throwing them over and down on
the water. You can create a makshift life jacket this way. Wet fabric can hold
air. It isn't perfect, you have to keep refilling air as it leaks but it does
work. I was in a swimming pool and not high seas so not sure how effective it
would be in that situation. Definitely better than just treading water though.

~~~
zimbu668
I was doing laps in college one time when an ROTC class was practicing this.
At the same time they were learning how to use their M16s(or something in the
family) while swimming.

------
sirwolfgang
Develop as part of an interactive experience by the agency CLM BBDO for
yachtwear manufacturer Guy Cotten and released on Apr 24, 2014. The goal is to
remind people to buy and wear lifejackets.

~~~
32faction
Definitely convinced me. I figured life jackets on boats are what seatbelts
are to cars. It's a small thing you probably should put on.

------
saganus
This looks very interesting. However for those of us with a slow internet
connection, the fact that I can't pause and let it load means my experience is
cut every few seconds.

~~~
reustle
I had the same issue, someone put it up on youtube here
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQNNgvvVgi8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQNNgvvVgi8)

------
mjlee
Having a competent crew helps too.

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.

------
fit2rule
That made me very, very uncomfortable. Probably one of the worst things I've
ever felt while comfortably sitting in front of my computer, browsing the web.

Well done! :)

~~~
spain
> That made me very, very uncomfortable. Probably one of the worst things I've
> ever felt while comfortably sitting in front of my computer, browsing the
> web.

No kidding. I only noticed after it was over how much I was sweating. It was
pretty powerful.

------
bigbugbag
It seems appropriate to plug this article "Drowning Doesn’t Look Like
Drowning" :
[http://gcaptain.com/drowning/?10981](http://gcaptain.com/drowning/?10981)

------
ruggeri
I want to watch, but can't transfer fast enough. Therefore:

wget [https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/guy-
cotten/videos/guy_cot...](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/guy-
cotten/videos/guy_cotten_experience_master_720p.mp4)

Hope that helps someone.

------
Animats
All I get is a black screen with an intro logo, and an endless loop of ocean
sounds.

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.

~~~
jordanlev
Perhaps you have cookies or localStorage disabled? I browse that way by
default and it is unfortunate the number of sites that just plain don't work
(without any kind of message to that effect).

~~~
Animats
Of course I do. The question, of course, is what _else_ is that site doing
that needs cookies or local storage?

------
PeterWhittaker
Please - include an "autoplay" notice in headlines.

------
mintplant
I made it to 4:30. Is there more to the story (more flashbacks?) if you
survive for longer? I got the impression that Charles was deliberately trying
to kill Julien. Maybe I'm reading too much into this.

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".

~~~
bigbugbag
Having a trackpoint equipped computer I scroll to infinity with no effort, I
tried a few times and the character always drown around the 5 minutes mark.

I suppose the whole thing is well made and everybody gets to see Charles
waving goodbye and laughing right before the character drowns.

~~~
mintplant
I missed that part, too. In my version, Julien's wife reaching out her hand
was the last thing I saw before the ocean floor.

------
acjohnson55
I just get the splash page, and then nothing. I assume I'm missing something?

~~~
lkurtz
The whole thing is a splash page. :rimshot:

------
driverdan
No pause button and not fully preloading made this unusable on a "slow"
(<10Mb) connection.

------
froo
This is exactly why my girlfriend and I always use our PFD's with harnesses
when passagemaking and alternating watches. It's a simple thing to strap into
the jacklines and all but eliminates our fears about this sort of thing
happening.

------
swamp40
I was doing good until he tore his fingernail off. Yuck!

Is that something that really happens?

~~~
32faction
I think what they were going for is the water can be so cold you loose the
sensation in your fingers so trying to get a response combined with decreased
body temperature, results in applying too much force to break it off.

Also makes for a good cringe factor to make the simulation feel even more
real.

------
cbd1984
This works for a while, then freezes.

------
tabrischen
It would be interesting to see full length feature films developed in this
technique.

------
pgrote
Very well done. At one point I thought I could bob on the surface. Nope.

------
kybernetyk
So why didn't the other guy turn back?

~~~
wffurr
Same reason he jibed unintentionally. He doesn't know how to sail.

------
confiscate
i can't get past 5 min. Is 5 min the hard upper limit of how long you can play
this game?

------
gie
Who else here waiting for sharks?

------
rememberlenny
Was this a Oculus production?

~~~
reportingsjr
I got 3mins 28s before drowning and then it said "you tire faster than you
think at sea. Always wear a life jacket." I'm gonna go with it being an
interesting PSA.

~~~
listic
How do you even __try __to stay afloat? I get 0.

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.

~~~
kenbellows
If you've got a mouse with a scroll wheel, scroll "down" constantly to stay
afloat

~~~
tootie
I'll bet I could cheat it with WebDriver or something, but I'm not that
industrious.

~~~
a3_nm
I simply did:

    
    
        sleep 5; while true; do xdotool click 4; sleep 0.01; done
    

(The sleep 5 at the beginning is to have time to switch to a different window
and put it fullscreen.)

~~~
tootie
Did it work? Does he get rescued? Is bash better than a life jacket?

------
lkurtz
Whenever you go out to sea... well... just don't go out to sea.

~~~
32faction
Plane crashes can be over water. Just be sure you grab your seat flotation
device to make treading water somewhat easier.

~~~
sejje
Learn the dead man's float.

------
joncp
So, let's see... autoplay, splash screen, a video with no navigation controls.
That site's UX sucks in a big way, so why is it #2 on HN?

~~~
axeldelmas
Well probably because that's a very creative way to spread their marketing
message. And because it is very well done technically as well: stitching video
segments in an order that depends on user action, without any visible
transition, means they put a lot of work on that.

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

