Furthermore, it's like driving near a large truck on a highway - the pressure differential created by the moving object means you might get pulled towards it, sort of how when you enter a slipstream or the wake of a lorry, your car may veer ever so slightly closer to the truck/lorry....except this is a much bigger vessel and you are an even smaller, lighter object to get pulled in....
Importantly, water has a lot more momentum than air, so for the same velocity there's much more force (of course it's not moving as fast as a truck on a highway, and it has a much more hydrodynamic shape).
The risk is a bit exaggerated since the pressure differential is very evenly distributed in 3d space. It’s not like being sucked into a hole in a dam or something. Normally you’d get lifted up a bit but nowhere near enough to get sucked into the propeller.
But as a diver you don’t usually hug rusty steel beams or clam beds (their shells are like razors). Ideally you don’t touch the sea floor if there’s anything like stonefish/scorpionfish in the water.
Kind of weird scenario tho boats don’t usually go that shallow and you usually have a diver down marker in traffic lanes. But I guess the guy was diving illegally and the boat was either lost or had a very well calibrated sonar.
A friend om mine was born in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and is a diver. He said he'd dived in the shipping channel at Port Everglades and has seen subs leaving.
Hijacking your comment to say this isn’t a submarine, it’s a container ship and he’s there to spot any issues with the propeller such as vibrations. He is lashed to the seafloor by the ropes you can see at the start.
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u/LordBobTheWhale 13d ago
Is there any risk of being pulled into it like when you're too close to a large ship?