Flag line getting fouled on fins - rope float idea

[johndiver999]

What are you trying to accomplish here? Not getting run over by a boat? That float is a boat attractant! Legal flag compliance is not possible. Shoot a bag at the end while listening carefully

Are you listening? Are you really advising this guy to jump off a boat, scooter in a strong current (easily over 3 kts some days) for 30-50 minutes and then send a marker buoy up from some random location and simply hope and expect for the dive boat to have an idea where he is? This is very poor practice and is illegal in Florida.

The proper way to do it (in the local area) while scootering in strong currents, is to tow a float (NOT necessarily a dive flag) and have the boat follow the float. The boat displays the dive flag and theoretically stays close so that the diver is complying with the regulations of diving in proximity to a dive flag. So compliance IS possible and I've done it thousands of times. If you are diving with a competent boat captain, they will do everything they can to protect the float from idiot/inattentive boaters.

I've seen quite a few close calls and even one memorable fatality from a diver run over by a boat; so I have little patience for the advice you seem to be offering to somebody who is simply trying to figure this out.

 

[rjack321]

Are you listening? Are you really advising this guy to jump off a boat, scooter in a strong current (easily over 3 kts some days) for 30-50 minutes and then send a marker buoy up from some random location and simply hope and expect for the dive boat to have an idea where he is? This is very poor practice and is illegal in Florida.

The proper way to do it (in the local area) while scootering in strong currents, is to tow a float (NOT necessarily a dive flag) and have the boat follow the float. The boat displays the dive flag and theoretically stays close so that the diver is complying with the regulations of diving in proximity to a dive flag. So compliance IS possible and I've done it thousands of times. If you are diving with a competent boat captain, they will do everything they can to protect the float from idiot/inattentive boaters.

I've seen quite a few close calls and even one memorable fatality from a diver run over by a boat; so I have little patience for the advice you seem to be offering to somebody who is simply trying to figure this out.

Shrugs not sure what thread you're in but the OP said NOTHING about a boat trying to follow them while scootering or even any current at all.

Predominantly on DPV dives (but sometimes also under normal circumstances) the flag line will become tangled with my fins. I usually clip off the reel to an attachment point on the bottom of my back plate and wing. The tangling occurs because as you move quickly through the water, the line streams behind young based on the attachment point, it is in line with the fins.

So there is a rope float concept (see image), where a secondary rope is attached to the neck of the tank, a float is attached to the other end of this rope, and another attachment point is placed by the float. The idea is that you clip off the reel to the attachment point by the float. This elevates the reel, and keeps it away from your body.

This works really well. Until it doesn’t.

Yesterday we were diving in about 100 feet of water and the float was compressed by the pressure and was no longer able to float the reel.

I know that I am not the only one that has used this rope/float concept. The question that I would have is: what float has been successfully used that does not compress under the pressure of depth.