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MFF Data: Which Shark Movie Features the Fastest Shark?

July 27, 2018

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Shark Night 3D (2011), a movie about college kids being eaten by sharks, features the fastest shark ever seen on the big screen. This may seem implausible considering the larger-than-life sharks in The MegDeep Blue Sea and Jaws 2  got up to speeds of 30-45 MPH for extended periods of time. In the real world, great white sharks can hit speeds of 35 MPH for short bursts. However, in the fictional world of Shark Night 3D, A great white shark hits 66 miles per hour during its pursuit of Blake (Chris Zlyka), a jet ski riding college student who must’ve been surprised as us when he is eaten.

This shark is fast.

The following breaks down the jet ski moment and figures out how fast the shark had to swim to kill the unlucky college student.

Here is what I know:

  1. The scene takes place towards the end of the movie when Blake (Chris Zlyka) is trying to get his one-armed friend Malik (Sinqua Walls) to a hospital via a jet ski. Malik notices that a shark is gaining on them (they are going 40 MPH easily) and decides to sacrifice himself to the shark, so Blake can get away. The problem is that Blake comes back to save his friend (he doesn’t) and quickly realizes he needs to speed away to escape the bullet-shark. A chase ensues!
  2. The length of the chase is 102 seconds.
  3. The guy (Blake) is riding a 2010 Yamaha Waverunner FZS that is capable of a 68-70 MPH top speed.
  4. It could only have been the great white shark because the hammerhead was dead, the tiger sharks were in a cage, and the bull shark was busy in the mangroves killing another unlucky college student.

Fastest shark in cinema history.

Here are my assumptions:

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sn-attack.png

A very technical look at the final seconds.

  1. Blake has a 20-foot head start on the shark.
  2. Blake’s top speed was 50 MPH on the jet ski (73.3 feet per second).
  3. The total distance he covered was 7,476.6 feet (in 102 seconds)
  4. The scene is interrupted by a moment involving the dastardly sheriff harassing more college students, but I kept counting the seconds and assumed the scene was happening in real time.
  5. The shark hits 0-60 MPH in 6 seconds and covers 309 feet in that time.
  6. The shark kept up a constant speed of 66 MPH (96.8 feet per second) for 76 seconds after hitting 60 MPH
  7. The shark passes Blake underwater (it only takes 12.5 seconds) and doesn’t attack because this is a movie — and that wouldn’t look cool.
  8. The shark traveled 7,663 feet (in 82 seconds) from the beginning of the chase until the end.
  9. The extra 20 seconds were used to turn around and jump out of the water. Why 20 seconds? The shark is huge, and would need the time to turn around and get ready for the perfect jump (Seriously, a perfect jump).

Look in front of you.

Conclusion:

The math based on my assumptions have the great white shark traveling at a maximum of 66 MPH for 76 seconds. This breaks every shark speed record (real and cinematic) ever and proves Shark Night 3D wasn’t messing around when it came to the abilities of its sharks. I don’t think this was the work of two sharks because the other sharks were engaged with other things and I don’t believe they were so smart they could eliminate jet skiers with teamwork. There is no exact way to know how far he traveled on the jet ski, but Its safe to assume that the shark hit at least 60 MPH during the scene which would still break every shark record known to man (and sharks)

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