TekISBest
Registered
What you are describing is a runaway ascent already in progress. Gabe Watson did not have any runaway ascent. In fact, his computer apparently showed that he maintained a steady depth - AND a painfully slow 2 1/2 minute ascent from 40 feet - not a buoyant ascent. He in fact controlled his ascent MUCH too well.
They appear to be maintaining bouyance while attached to each other.
The moment they let go of each other Tiny sank immediately and quickly. Tiny is heavy and was being held up in the water colume by Gabes upward lift. The moment she let go and sank he would be accending. 2 1/2 minutes from 40 feet is the max accend rate any diver should accend at and this does not include the 3 min stop time at 15 feet. His accend rate would not painfully slow rather the max rate he should be accending at.
The weight that we wear is to compensate for the thickness of our exposure protection in the first 10 feet or so from the surface. The weight that we wear is to allow you to descend those first 10 feet AND to do a safety stop without holding a line and do a controlled ascent from your safety stop(s) to the surface. The weight is NOT required to get you deeper because your exposure protection is already compressed. In fact, we need to ADD air to stay off the bottom. Once you break the surface, you can descend rapidly with little or no weight - depth is not where weight is needed. Gabe maintained a steady depth of 40 or 45 feet, so he was not experiencing difficulty with buoyancy. Therefore, his weighting and buoyancy control seemed to be just fine and DO NOT support the theory that he was "light" for any reason.
Reference to light/heavy is not intended the way you described it. What i was referencing by light was... He had ahold of her at what... 40 feet... with all the motoring around that would take place due to the situation would almost surely result in kicking upward in the colume by feet at least. Both of their BC would expand and light in the water colume they would become. With out compensation they both would eventually surface. The moment he let go of Tiny he would become light in the water colume and begin accending even faster. Tiny obviously was heavy because she sank quickly.
Here is a suggestion... What if Tinys struggle and panic was due to her feeling like she was sinking and not able to accend. What if she panic and became exhausted trying to kick her way to the surface. What if Cabes hold on her was to make sure she was breathing and once he saw that was not the problem he let go while not realizing what Tiny saw the problem to be. This can just as easy explain what happen with out calling it murder.