Bogged down by BC
- Thread starter noelandmero
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fmw625
Guest
Often I on reaching the surface will inflate my BCD till the safety valves releave and pull bottom release and refill until bubbles come out to help purge water from BCD. On my cert dives some how I also got water in my BCD that was not detected until I cleared the surface.
Wristshot
Contributor
Many, many issues with this whole "scenario".
An open valve does allow water to enter (and exit) your BC, but it does not simply suck up water until filled. Even if your BC does fill, (as pointed out earlier) that alone does not make you negative. Yes, the water takes up volume that could normally be used for air, but it still will not make you negative.
I am not going to crucify someone for not noticing some air flowing out of a back up regulator, but it does make me wonder where the back up regulator was stored that the diver did not notice. Perhaps more importantly, why didn't the buddy notice air flowing from the back up reg? There was even a third person in the group, and still no one noticed? I know Monterey viz can be low, but come on now, this sounds like some buddies were not paying attention.
This sounds so very wrong. We must be missing some details, because this makes no sense. If this is NOT a troll, this is a severely overweighted diver.
In theory, the diver should have been able to float at the surface (basically) with an empty tank while still wearing weights, regardless of how much water or air was in the BC.
If the weights were dropped, then the diver would be significantly positive at the surface, again regardless of the amount of water in the BC.
The rule of thumb is that you have 2 - 3 lbs of bouyancy for each millimeter thickness of a wetsuit. (Trial and error says this is a reasonable estimate). Since most people wear 7 mm in Monterey, the diver should have had plenty of bouyancy without weights, regardless of the tank material.
Also, if you were having trouble staying above the surface, normally one option is to relax and put your regulator back in your mouth. Air consumption at the surface should be relatively low (unless panicked) and even a low tank should provide air at the surface for a while. Completely depleting the air in the tank is bad, but paying for a hydro because you sucked a tank dry is still proabably better than drowning at the surface.
No offense intended, but it sounds like you need to work on your fundamentals so that you don't panic next time.
Not to mention the fact that maybe, just maybe such inexperienced divers should not be swimming out quite so far until their skills are a little better. Diving skills, and buddy skills.
Another good argument for diving with buddies (even inattentive ones) to help you out when things go wrong.
Of course, since the dump valve was stuck, the water would have drained out when the BC was lifted out of the water. (Yes, I know that tanks are heavy, but . . )
This is perhaps the part that concerned me the most when I first read the post. Why was this diver not aware that her tank was empty? Then I realized that maybe, maybe there was plenty of air when she surfaced, but the rest drained out because of the unnoticed leak. If that is NOT the answer, then these are some divers that need (once again) to go back and seriously focus on some fundamentals, like watching your air pressure gauge and keeping an eye on your buddy.
I really hate to sound preachy, but this whole situation sounds like something from the "news media". There is a basic story, with danger and excitement, but it has a lot of flaws, errors and omissions.
I don't mean to be overly harsh, but this sounds like a simple set of problems that were allowed to escallate. Fortunately everything ended up okay, and hopefully people will learn from this.
Wristshot
noelandmero:
An open valve does allow water to enter (and exit) your BC, but it does not simply suck up water until filled. Even if your BC does fill, (as pointed out earlier) that alone does not make you negative. Yes, the water takes up volume that could normally be used for air, but it still will not make you negative.
noelandmero:
I am not going to crucify someone for not noticing some air flowing out of a back up regulator, but it does make me wonder where the back up regulator was stored that the diver did not notice. Perhaps more importantly, why didn't the buddy notice air flowing from the back up reg? There was even a third person in the group, and still no one noticed? I know Monterey viz can be low, but come on now, this sounds like some buddies were not paying attention.
noelandmero:
This sounds so very wrong. We must be missing some details, because this makes no sense. If this is NOT a troll, this is a severely overweighted diver.
In theory, the diver should have been able to float at the surface (basically) with an empty tank while still wearing weights, regardless of how much water or air was in the BC.
If the weights were dropped, then the diver would be significantly positive at the surface, again regardless of the amount of water in the BC.
The rule of thumb is that you have 2 - 3 lbs of bouyancy for each millimeter thickness of a wetsuit. (Trial and error says this is a reasonable estimate). Since most people wear 7 mm in Monterey, the diver should have had plenty of bouyancy without weights, regardless of the tank material.
Also, if you were having trouble staying above the surface, normally one option is to relax and put your regulator back in your mouth. Air consumption at the surface should be relatively low (unless panicked) and even a low tank should provide air at the surface for a while. Completely depleting the air in the tank is bad, but paying for a hydro because you sucked a tank dry is still proabably better than drowning at the surface.
noelandmero:
No offense intended, but it sounds like you need to work on your fundamentals so that you don't panic next time.
Not to mention the fact that maybe, just maybe such inexperienced divers should not be swimming out quite so far until their skills are a little better. Diving skills, and buddy skills.
noelandmero:
Another good argument for diving with buddies (even inattentive ones) to help you out when things go wrong.
Of course, since the dump valve was stuck, the water would have drained out when the BC was lifted out of the water. (Yes, I know that tanks are heavy, but . . )
noelandmero:
This is perhaps the part that concerned me the most when I first read the post. Why was this diver not aware that her tank was empty? Then I realized that maybe, maybe there was plenty of air when she surfaced, but the rest drained out because of the unnoticed leak. If that is NOT the answer, then these are some divers that need (once again) to go back and seriously focus on some fundamentals, like watching your air pressure gauge and keeping an eye on your buddy.
I really hate to sound preachy, but this whole situation sounds like something from the "news media". There is a basic story, with danger and excitement, but it has a lot of flaws, errors and omissions.
I don't mean to be overly harsh, but this sounds like a simple set of problems that were allowed to escallate. Fortunately everything ended up okay, and hopefully people will learn from this.
Wristshot
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