Triple Sow Cow into a Watermelon?

July 7, 2009 7:37 PM

What is the best/most awesome technique to make the biggest splash from a 1m diving board?

I took a job as a lifeguard this summer, and rather than spend my downtime in the office, I'd like to hone my ability to make a crowd pleasing splash off of the diving board.

I'm pretty proficient off of a diving board, so really any technique limited by the 1m board is welcome.

posted by clearly to sports, hobbies, & recreation (18 comments total)

A Can Opener is the biggest splash maker I know. Check out this Youtube, it's #2.
posted by sanka at 7:41 PM on July 7

Well the best way would be to gain about 400lbs.

Short of that, you're looking for maximum surface area hitting the water. Some of these may hurt: that can opener looks smart since it divides the whole-body surface impact into a two step process.
posted by rokusan at 7:51 PM on July 7

n-thing the can opener. It's my standby. You don't even need a board; jumping right off the side of the pool works just fine. Any added height is just a bonus.
posted by valkyryn at 8:15 PM on July 7

I would have thought a belly flop would be the biggest. But it also hurts like mad.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:21 PM on July 7

Belly flop doesn't make a great splash. It just hurts.

If you can pull off a massive gainer into a can opener, you will be queen of the pool.
posted by The World Famous at 8:24 PM on July 7

Short of that, you're looking for maximum surface area hitting the water.

Not true. You're looking for a small, dense mass to carve a big "hole" in the surface. That is to say, to lose your velocity in a kind of sweet spot in relation to the water's surface tension.

The maximum surface area technique of a belly flop results in a wide splash, but not a terribly big one, because you lose all of your velocity as fast as possible -- so fast that really only half your body is doing the work of churning up the water surface.

Can opener and cannonball for the win. And try as much as you can to hit a flat, calm surface. Not a churned up surface, which lowers surface tension and results in small waves taking some of the brunt of the impact.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:29 PM on July 7

I've always found a watermelon (I think that's what it's called) to make the biggest splash, but you really have to do it right. It's basically a dive, but in the shape of a cannonball. So a head-first cannonball. But again, it takes some precision (that I, frankly, never really had).
posted by inigo2 at 8:33 PM on July 7

And watching sanka's youtube video, I think the watermelon has the biggest.
posted by inigo2 at 8:36 PM on July 7

In my experience the cannonball has a higher chance of turning into a painful backflop, while the extended leg of the can opener gives you better tilt control to avoid that. YMMV.
posted by scalefree at 8:56 PM on July 7

Growing up, everybody was pretty much doing can openers, but there was this one guy who made the biggest splash, nobody could compete. He was a big guy, not obese, just big. And he'd do something like the mummy (#3 in sanka's video) but I remember his body being straight. Something like a 45 degree angle, but rotating toward the water as he hit it. Not only would it make a huge splash, but he could turn as he was coming off the board and really direct the splash (usually in the direction of the lifeguard chair, heh).
posted by cali59 at 9:28 PM on July 7 [1 favorite]

For me, a Watermelon worked best. Especially if the people I wanted to splash were in front of where I'd land in the pool.

Cool Papa Bell is right. The idea isn't to have maximum surface area hitting the pool. Instead, you need to hit the pool in a way that forces water to be thrown. In other words, a precise relatively slim entry where your body then follows at an angle to fling water. That's why the Mummy is also pretty effective.

When I was learning to do forward flips of the diving board, I used to always overshoot the rotation. My head and shoulders would start to go into the water, but my body was still flipping, so the rest of me would slice into the water at an angle that...

A: Hurt A Lot.
B: Flung A Lot Of Water.

It was a lose-lose situation for everyone,
posted by 2oh1 at 10:47 PM on July 7 [1 favorite]

If you're a lifeguard, don't do a watermelon unless you want every 10 year old boy in the pool doing one too. I suppose as a plus you'll get to practice spinal-immobilization pool removals more often.

Cannonball, can opener.
posted by GuyZero at 11:28 PM on July 7

Belly Flop - No, thank you.

Cannonball - I've seen a decent splash, but it is probably the least remarkable of the bunch.

Can Opener - This is the default of course, but I'm thinking that the "mummy" probably displaces more water, with the legs, and leaning back once you hit the water.

Gainer into a Can Opener - I've actually pulled this off a couple times, but the reaction has been pretty meh. Maybe the splashes were sub-par... I'll work on it. For this one, the rotation really flings the back into the water which should help with the displacement. I'll have get this one down.

Watermelon - GuyZero, with all due respect, no one is going to need a spinal extraction from something that is at worst a failed front flip. It is a diving well of course.

I'm thinking that barring some crazy unheard of trick, cali59 and 2oh1 are on the money. Maybe I'll give the 1 and a half Watermelon a try tomorrow.

Thanks for all of your answers.
posted by clearly at 12:02 AM on July 8

I would have been required to reprimand and possibly eject swimmers who did front flips in the pools I guarded for insurance reasons/cause my bosses told me so. YMMV.
posted by GuyZero at 12:03 AM on July 8

I've always found the mummy to be the best bang for your buck, especially for not-so-big people. (I didn't see the video above, but) The trick is to curve your back towards the front a little so that it doesn't hit all at once; your lower back/butt should hit first, and the curve of your back (in the head-to-toe direction and the lateral direction) will push the water out in the way that 2oh1 describes. A huge benefit of this is that when the water rushes back in to fill the void in the water that your body created (a void that is much, much bigger than a cannonball or a can opener) you will get a very high "spout" of water.
posted by Simon Barclay at 6:31 AM on July 8

My old diving coach, who was a professional stunt diver at an amusement park, used to do a killer banana/mummy, the splash from which could hit the ceiling in our indoor pool. I've never seen anything else like it. The key is to rotate back slightly as you hit the water, and I would definitely recommend covering your face.
posted by dilettanti at 8:50 AM on July 8

Huh. That is not what I remember as the "watermelon". The head-down cannonball version is like a watermelon going in end-first, while our watermelon hit the water in a horizontal orientation. The joke was that you pretended to be doing a horrific belly flop, arms and legs all sticking straight out, body horizontal, and then tucked everything in at the last possible instant. Arms tucked in parallel protecting face, legs tucked up like cannonball protecting tender belly. And yes, I think that was our big splash maker.
posted by madmethods at 10:28 AM on July 8

It sounds like the mummy/banana is the winner for the biggest splash maker.

madmethods, a guy came into the pool the other day and pulled the exact move you described. As he went off, I cringed because in mid air, a belly flop was inevitable. At the last second he tucked into a watermelon and got a great splash out of the move.

Thanks for the answers everybody.
posted by clearly at 5:57 PM on July 8