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The Making of Shark Nets

Main picture

Shark attacks along the beaches in Russian last year made it necessary to provide all legal beaches with anti-shark obstructions.

The color of the nets

The color of the nets

It was decided that nets with meshes 120×120 mm (4.7x4.7 inches) would be optimal: swimmers won’t get entangled in them and fish will be able to swim through for spawning. However the net had to be sea-colored or else it would scare spawing fish away.

Polyethylene nets were determined to be less subject to fouling and would have the longest service life. But the thick rope that gives the net its strength along its great length had to be special-made.

It begins with normal strands.

It begins with single strands.

They are fed into a spinning machine.

They are fed into a spinning machine.

Where they are organized.

Where they are organized.

And made into an extremely strong rope.

And woven into a very strong rope of enormous length.

The netting, made in another weaving process, is then hand-sewn to the rope.

Sewing the netting to the rope.

Sewing the netting to the rope.

Women at the Tavrichanskaya Net Knitting Factory (shown here) in Primor'ye, Russia, on the coast of the Baltic Sea, produce miles of the shark-obstructing netting.

The floats

The floats

Floats are used to hold the top of the nets at the top of the water. The bottoms of the nets are weighted to make them hang vertical. Neither the old glass floats used in days gone by or the new modern plastic floats can stand up to the roughness of the ocean, so ordinary floats are replaced with floats made of foamed EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate).

They are strung onto ropes of their own

These are strung onto a second rope...

Then the floats are woven to the net.

...and that rope is hand-woven to the rope holding the net.

This year, they will produce 10 km (6 and 1/5 miles) of netting to place at 10 beaches along the Russian beach resorts. The nets will hang down into the water to a depth of 7 meters (23 feet), 50 to 100 meters (164 to 328 feet) from the shore.

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