Is sharks’ strength comparable to the one seen in “Jaws” or is it another one of these shark tales?
Shark tales or not, they are still very impressive!
As a child, like millions of movie goers, I remember the movie “Jaws”, the horror of its shark attacks, the fear and the strength that were related to that great white shark. Since this movie appeared on the silver screen in 1975, it changed the ways people see sharks as cold blooded killers with an insatiable thirst for blood. But, is this movie based on facts or fiction? Is it another one of these shark tales?
In the movie “Jaws”, one of the things that both impressed moviegoers was the incredible strength of the shark. I mean, when you see a shark pull a fishing boat backwards and that you also witness it pulling sporadically three barrels down, ram a boat and destroy a diving cage, you wonder how you could even be safe inside a boat and out of it when in the water. Let’s find out if all or some of these impressive displays of strength are shark tales or based on facts.
When you consider that a breaching shark can do some aerial maneuvers at an estimated speed of 20 to 25 mph and that the regular swimming speed is estimated at approximately 5-6 mph both of which have never been clocked, you wonder the kind of speed it would need to be able to ram a boat. Concerning the strength displayed in the movie, it has been tested that a 6 feet long Caribbean reef shark cannot pull more than its own weight in a strong pull and no more than 30% of its weight in a continuous pull.
Well, when you know that to pull a boat, the strength needed to accomplish that, it means that a shark would need to pull more than double its weight in strength which does not reflect reality. So in this case, you can say that “Jaws” brought to life one of these shark tales.
Now in the movie “Jaws” the main character was a great white shark that was 25 feet in length and weighted approximately 6,000 lbs which was bigger than the largest great white shark that was ever recorded. In fact, the largest one ever recorded measured 19 feet in length and weighted 4,680 lbs. Based on these facts, it has been tested and confirmed that a 3,000 lbs shark swimming at a speed of 25 mph can actually ram a boat the way “Jaws” did it. It also has been both tested and proven that a shark this size can destroy and enter a diving cage at that speed.
Finally, when you know that you need 1,200 lbs of strength just to submerge the three barrels that the great white shark did in “Jaws” while not using a continuous pull when in the movie he pulled them way down, well this is another confirmed of these shark tales.
As you can see, the movie “Jaws” may have been partly based on facts but a lot of them were actually based on Hollywood’s version and shark tales.
About the Author
My name is Sylvie Leochko. The movie “Jaws” has created a phobia of sharks for thousands of people. What are facts and shark tales? If you wish to find out the answer to this question, I suggest that you visit the following main page: http://sharks.findoutnow.org/shark-tales.html .
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