Anyone want a salvage dive at Chatfield?

[boulderjohn]

I'm very sorry to report that we did not find the sail.

We brought a total of 3 divers, and we did numnerous sweeps using a line to hold our positions. The visibility was horrible. We had to stay within a foot of the bottom to see it. WIth my LED cannister LED, I could see in a sweep of about 3 feet maximum. Still, I think we did a reasonable job of covering a rectangular area that surpassed her best guess of where it went down. It is possible that we had some small gaps in our coverage, but the odds that a sail would have been in those gaps and undetected are tiny.

It was not deep. At the deepest point it was about 17 feet, and it got as shallow as 11 feet in some areas. We finished off one tank and were about to try again when a lightning storm put an end to the festivities.

My theory is that the sail was very slow to sink and drifted off and away from the site of the upending. In that case, it could be anywhere. If it was caught in the prevailaing winds at all, it could actually be closer to shore than where we looked.

I feel really bad about not finding it, and I would be happy to give it another go if anyone is interested in joining me. I feel as if I owe at least another tank of effort. Under the rules, it would have to be during a weekday. I can provide tanks and other equipment.

The area is really pleasant from the shore, with a very nice beach. From the shore, it looked like the visibility would be good, and we were very surprised by how bad it was. The water temperature was pleasant, too--high 60's. I was comfortable in a dry suit with medium underwear, and one of my co-divers was comfortable in a 7mm semi-dry with hooded vest.

 

[mintaka]

And the other co-diver was freezing in his flooded drysuit :crying2:
Nonetheless it was a great learning experience.

 

[boulderjohn]

And the other co-diver was freezing in his flooded drysuit :crying2:
Nonetheless it was a great learning experience.

Do you want to try again? I would like to do a couple of sweeps deeper than we started, and then come in and do some shallower than we ended.

 

[mintaka]

John, I would certainly try again, but it seems that the seals on my drysuit had deteriorated from sitting around on display.
, so the shop is sending it back for new seals. If I could get a suit, I'd love to have another go at it. I'm off now to the mountains for the rest of the weekend but I'll check with you on Monday.

 

[boulderjohn]

John, I would certainly try again, but it seems that the seals on my drysuit had deteriorated from sitting around on display.
, so the shop is sending it back for new seals. If I could get a suit, I'd love to have another go at it. I'm off now to the mountains for the rest of the weekend but I'll check with you on Monday.

OK--I'll be ready for it.

 

[boulderjohn]

Dan (Mintaka) and I did try again, with a different plan, but with no more luck.

We were going to try a two person circular search. The idea was to set a line for guidance and attach the end of a reel line at one end. The two of us would then space ourselves appropriately and do a series of circles, letting out line each time we passed over the reference line. We were planning to do a series of overlapping circles around the most likely location.

Our first attempt threw that plan out the window. The bottom was too loose to hold anything that would have any kind of resistance. I could thrust a ground screw all the way into the silt without turning it. We decided to reduce our efficiency in half by having Dan hold the end of the reel while I did the circles. This is not the best choice in such loose silt for several reasons, one of which is that Dan could only accomplish that by planting himself on the bottom, meaning that I had to start the search in zero visibility.

Things got better as I got farther from the center, but it never even rose to the level of bad. I was using a powerful canister light, which barely cut through the gloom. I was making sweeping motions with the light inches above the bottom, and on several occasions my hand plowed through silt because I could not tell the difference between the bottom and the water.

Still, I managed to do what I believe was a pretty thorough coverage of our first circle until I came almost to the end of the reference line. Then I ran into something unexpected--a Christmas tree. Since I was almost done with that area anyway, we rotated the reference line about 70 degrees and set out again. Unfortunately, I ran into more Christmas trees almost immediately. Apparently they are dumped there to create a fish habitat. Of course, a line and reel circular search is impossible with obstacles like that in the water. That ended our attempt.

I am quite frustrated, and I would be happy to join someone who is in the mood for some local diving with a purpose. We will need a new strategy, but I do have some ideas. We should also need some more bodies. One of the problems we encountered was simply dealing with all the equipment we needed to carry with our old strategy and only two people. Carrying a dive flag is critical because of the boat traffic in the area, so if you are in near zero viz carrying ground screws, a reel, a reference line on a spool, a light, and a dive flag, you are seriously task loaded. It would be nice to divide some of that up among a larger team.

 

[Shaka Doug]

Sounds like a lot of work to find that sail! I hope you get it!