AS we settle into the long-awaited summer, people are eager to get outdoors. Pools, beaches, and parks are sure to be packed all season long. While having fun, you need to keep in mind some safety tips.

For one thing, experts are warning that bringing this summer favorite into the water with you at the beach could actually be dangerous.

As tempting as it may be to hop on a giant float and drift along the coastline of the beach, it’s not worth trying. Experts said that the large floats that have become exceedingly popular over the last few years are a risky choice for the beach. “The ones that cause the most trouble out here are the giant unicorns and cartoony, multiple person flotation devices,” said David Vaughan, beach safety director of the South Walton Fire District in South Walton, Florida, the United States. “They get out of control.”

As Vaughan explained, if the wind blows the wrong way, people can easily get carried out too far from shore. “The larger wind footprint in the sail, the more wind they catch, the faster they go,” he said.

Ross Macleod of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in the U.K. also told The Sun that using an inflatable float at the beach “could easily end in tragedy.” Macleod added that “people don’t appreciate these simply aren’t designed for the sea.” Since the floats tend to be lightweight, they can easily be taken by the tide. “They’re basically massive sails which can whisk you miles out to sea in seconds,” he said.

Wind plays a big part in how dangerous these floats are.

On a windless day, a large float may be harmless, but the moment it catches a breeze, you could end up out of reach from your loved ones. Vaughan advised anyone deciding to bring a float to the beach to “pay attention to the hourly wind forecast.” Keeping abreast of which direction the wind is shifting toward throughout your beach day can help keep you safe, he noted. And per Vaughan, any winds above 8 kilometers per hour can be dangerous when on a float in the ocean.

Whether you’re swimming or deciding to risk it all to ride on a float, you need to watch for rip currents, Vaughan warned.

He noted that these currents are especially dangerous for people who are not good swimmers, many of whom use flotation devices. If you get stuck in a rip current, think twice about leaving your float. “People often times misattribute the flotation device to the speed with which they’re getting pulled out, so they’ll ditch the flotation device and then blow themselves out on the cardio effort, and turn into a tragedy,” Vaughan said. “So we always watch the rip currents.”

(SD-Agencies)