Don't move the upline!

[TSandM]

Dumpster Diver, you are entirely correct in your criticisms. In my defense, the only thing I can say is that we don't DO this. I think this is only the second time in my life that I've dived off a boat that had hooked a wreck. I just didn't think through the permutations on the boat, so that we would be prepared for all the possibilities underwater.

I certainly could have stopped Peter, but I admit I was confused. I knew we had to move the hook; I thought it wasn't a good idea to do it then, but I wasn't convinced enough (again, not thinking it through) to realize that this was something I had to STOP RIGHT NOW. Now, I know.

The boat had no mate or DM to bounce to get the grapnel. I learned a ton in this thread about how to tie the hook up and onto the wreck, for future reference. I now have a whole pocketful of strategies for dealing with this situation in the future.

Yeah, we were stupid. What about being DIR makes you immune from that?

 

[tedj01]

TS&M,

I was shocked by this thread.

I think I see a problem which was not already covered.

You talked about worrying about bounce diving and let you buddy do:

I don't know how much the grapple weighs, but it just about maxed out the lift capacity of Peter's wing to carry it.

One should ever use your buoyancy device to lift an object or one's buddy. This too can be very dangerous for many reasons.

If there is a question about doing something like this. You can always cut the line; rope's just too cheap compared to the alternatives. The object (grapple) could always have been recovered later.

I am trying to not adopt too critical a tone, but I'm just totally surprised. There were just too many mistakes that happened. :11:

 

[RJP]

And a question for those of you who put a strobe on the upline -- do you leave it for the last person or, if you are the one who has put it on the line, do you take it with you when you ascend?)

It depends.

If I'm crewing and go in first to set the hook I will tend to leave the strobe because many of the divers coming down after me will assume that I put it there in an official capacity "for the boat" and I wouldn't want someone assuming they could look for the strobe and not be able to find it.

If I'm a passenger, or otherwise not down first, I will take it back up when I go.

 

[nereas]

I thought I would share an incident from yesterday's dive, where we made a mistake that caused some difficulties, but luckily, no major problems.

We were diving a wreck, and the boat had put down a grapple. In the dive briefing, we were asked to make sure the grapple was free before we came up, so that the boat could retrieve it.

We were diving as two teams. One team was a pair of fairly novice divers, and the other was three much more experienced people. The trio (of which I was a member) got in first, and descended the line. The grapple was, in fact, trapped under a horizontal beam within the wreck, and would not come loose without being moved. We did not move it on descent, as the boat was tied to it at that point. The captain had told us that, after about 15 minutes, he would put a float on the line and move the boat, and at that point, we would be free to move the grapple safely.

We started our dive. The other team came down behind us, and we never saw them (which kind of surprised me -- it's not that big a wreck). After about 20 minutes of bottom time, we had done a circuit of the bow end of the boat, and came back to the grapple. My husband signaled, and went down and freed it up, and took it to the sand at the side of the wreck. He moved it about twenty feet or so, but far enough that it wasn't visible from the point where it had been, even if you knew where to look for it.

I wasn't very happy with us doing this at the point where we did, because we had never seen the other team. I didn't know if they'd even made it down, and if they had, we had now moved the upline to somewhere they wouldn't know where to look for it. In fact, they were unable to find it, found another line (from a grapple or anchor somebody had had to cut loose) and tried to ascend on that, only to find it ended partway to the surface. So our actions caused our less experienced team to have to do a blue water ascent, which they luckily carried out without incident.

The problem, of course, was that if anybody was going to try to move the grapple, it was going to have to be our team, because we were going to be able to cope with the buoyancy changes and any entanglement issues that came from trying to do this. (And we had enough gas, in doubles, to deal with the exertion of moving what turned out to be a very heavy object!) We hadn't arranged any way for the other team to let us know they were down or had ended their dive, nor any way for us to let THEM know where we had moved the line.

In retrospect, we should have talked about all of this on the surface. It would have been quite possible for the other team to have clipped off something (Dan was carrying a safety sausage, for example) to let us know they were down, and when they left, and we could have delayed moving the grapple until they were gone. Or, if we moved it earlier, we could have run line (we were all carrying spools) from the original site to the new one. We could have pulled out the spool before we ended our dive.

Anyway, I wanted to put this up because it's actually a pretty big mistake, which could have had much worse consequences than it did.

Nice story, TS&M ! Thank you so much for sharing with us!

This incident reminds me of the KISS principle. "Keep it simple."

Keeping it simple would have meant that only the last team out would have been authorized to move the grappling hook. No excuses. No matter if they are inexperienced. Sometimes you just have to trust inexperienced divers to do what they need to do.

Given (1) that is was an overly complex original plan, and (2) that your hubbie moved the grappling hook way too far, I am however surprised that he did not run some cave line from the grappling hook back to the wreck, then sliced it from his reel or spool, and taken his reel/spool with him while leaving the line?

If I were you, on that dive, I would have set some line for them, since he did not do it.

There would be no use in getting into an underwater wrestling match with your hubbie about where to place the hook. He placed it, so leave it there. But if you surmise that the following divers now cannot see it, then just run cave line to it back from the wreck.

OK, now there is enough blame to go all around.

Please don't be mad at me for blaming you too. I realize hindsight is 20-20 and it is easy to pick on you. Anyway, that is what I would have done. I am not shy about leaving cave line behind in the sea. I don't care if it takes 1000 years to decompose. If needed for the dive to go safely, that's what I would do.

Thanks again for sharing this experience with us all.

Now, I will go back and see what others here have said ... .

 

[nereas]

TS&M,

I was shocked by this thread.

I think I see a problem which was not already covered.

You talked about worrying about bounce diving and let you buddy do:



One should ever use your buoyancy device to lift an object or one's buddy. This too can be very dangerous for many reasons.

If there is a question about doing something like this. You can always cut the line; rope's just too cheap compared to the alternatives. The object (grapple) could always have been recovered later.

I am trying to not adopt too critical a tone, but I'm just totally surprised. There were just too many mistakes that happened. :11:

My favorite method is the "on your knees" method to move a heavy object like an anchor or a heavy hook.

You kneel next to the anchor (or hook), and then you lift it and move it about 3 feet with the strength in your arms and shoulders, while your knees are in the sand. Then you move over next to it again with your knees, kneel, and move it some more.

On any small boat, adjusting the anchor is normally the first thing that the first diver going down, and the last thing that the last diver returning, does. Going down, you want it secure. Coming back up you want it loose and un-fouled.

Never, never using the wing. Especially not when there is a deco obligation. Helium is very unforgiving on an uncontrolled ascent.

My impression however was that your hook was very light, and easily lifted. Not requiring your wing.

 

[Ana]

I am trying to not adopt too critical a tone, but I'm just totally surprised. There were just too many mistakes that happened. :11:

I think you failed, just my opinion, but the tone is waaaay in there.

This thread has been a good thought provoking one, TS&M was very generous sharing it.

I don't think is a DIR or not DIR, is more of a :what to do when you go from diver to crew.
When diving from our boat, my husband and I tend to set the anchor, go down the anchor line and the first thing we do is to check if it is secure, sometimes we move it to a better location other times we wait until the end of the dive to move it, but it is just the 2 of us.

 

[nereas]

... What about being DIR makes you immune from that?

Nothing about DIR makes you immune from mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.

I hope DIR is not teaching you all to think you will never make any mistakes?

 

[RJP]

... sometimes we move it to a better location other times we wait until the end of the dive to move it, but it is just the 2 of us.

Anyone on the boat?

 

[Rainer]

Nothing about DIR makes you immune from mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.

I hope DIR is not teaching you all to think you will never make any mistakes?

Yes, sadly, DIR teaches that DIR divers are always perfect. Always. Weird, right?

 

[nereas]

This was a screwup on my part, no doubt about it. So please, don't blame the "DIR" crowd for not having thought this through. It wasn't. I really do think even hardcore "DIR" divers make mistakes some times. That's why they train and try to think through different scenarios.

So, what were the mistakes here?

The first one was the captain's. He believed he had dropped the hook off the wreck ("I always drop it off the wreck but you might have to move it a couple of feet to clear something"). That was what was in my mind when I came upon the hook and saw that it had been pulled underneath part of the structure.

The second mistake was ours -- all of us. This should have been discussed and thought through -- it wasn't as already described.

The third mistake was mine. I remembered the Captain asking (several times) that we free the hook before we come up. After seeing that it was "hooked" I should have done nothing -- except perhaps of putting my SMB on the line to make it easier to see (and easier to move) later. This is something I will not forget (I hope!).

...quote].

I believe it is more common and more appropriate to drop the hook ON the wreck.

Then it is the first team down's responsibility to make sure it is SECURE to the wreck.

Then it is the last team up's responsibility to make sure it is FREE of the wreck.

I am surprised the captain said that he usually drops "off" the wreck. Normally, the hook will land "off" the wreck even when you are TRYING to hook it ON the wreck. Maybe he was lying?