Free ascents

[TSandM]

I just finished reading Fatal Depths, the book about some of the deaths on the Andrea Doria. One of the cases really made me curious, and that was the first one. The diver couldn't find the upline, and his jury-rigged one failed. He ended up on the surface shortly thereafter, having omitted almost all of his deco, and he died.

I understand that currents on that wreck can be ferocious, and that a diver doing a free ascent could end up miles from the wreck in open water a long way from shore. I'm wondering if the idea is that this diver would have made a conscious DECISION to omit his deco, to try to get to the surface while he was still close to the boat, or whether the implication is that he couldn't do his deco without an upline for reference. Having not taken any technical classes, I don't know what people are trained to do, but it would seem to me that having the ability to hang and do gas switches in midwater and without an upline would be a critical survival skill. We practice valve drills and air-sharing in midwater without a reference for just that sort of reason.

Anyway, curious what people who actually do these sorts of dives think.

 

[rjack321]

I wouldn't be surprised if someone on the Doria didn't have basic bouyancy skills. Given the prevalence of jon line ascents and jersey reels used on the east coast there's just not that many free ascents - so this skill might be weak and unappreciated. Combine that with overweighting (no all that uncommon) and I could see incidents like this happening.

I can also imagine a narcosis tainted decision to "get to the boat". And by the time the narcosis is minimal its polaris missile. Depending on the date of the incident the diver may very well have been on air.

 

[do it easy]

I think it would be better to do the deco and surface a few miles from the boat rather than omit all the deco and surface on the boat. Of course there is a balance point, especially when the currents are known to be strong.

I did have a situation like that ONCE, where I found myself alone midwater with a slight deco obligation, no boat or mooring line in sight, and I left my spool and reel on the boat (d'oh!). I didn't know if there was a current or not, although the Great Lakes aren't known for ridiculously strong currents. I did enough deco to satisfy my brain, but not my computer. I got out and my toes became a little numb, but that was because it was the middle of winter and the surface temps were below freezing, although there were a few minutes of doubt and reflection.

 

[rawls]

I read the same book Doc and it seems he made one mistake...overstaying his bottom time...that led to him either unable to find the anchor line or unable to get to it. So he sends up a surface bag tied to nylon rope that was already chaffed. So it breaks and he is left to do a deco without a reference. I can't recall if they said how much air he had left. I would be willing to bet he was low. In any event, with the reference line gone, he would have had to do a deco without it. I have done decos by launching surface markers and doing the hang on the reel line. I hold onto the reel and roll in the line as I ascend. It isn't that difficult but it does require vigilence in monitoring your depths, especially the shallow hang. So, yes, I was drilled on throwing markers and deco'ing on them, but haven't done any kind of training without a reference. Your post definitely is food for thought but it would be very hard to do decos without reference lines in the ocean. Like you said, it would put a diver way down range and carry the risk of getting lost even if people knew you were practicing. It would be interesting to see if he ran out of air or took his mind off of his depth and got himself into a runaway ascent. Who knows. I think he suffered a lung overexpansion injury...Panic maybe. It wouldn't have been hard to guess he had a LOI since he appeared at the surface unconscious. Plan your dive, dive your plan, have the right gear and make sure it is functioning properly. This guy missed the last 3.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

"...Anyway, curious what people who actually do these sorts of dives think."

...there are two basic schools of thought - shoot a bag and drift, or use an upreel.

First, though, environmental characteristics. East cost wrecks lie on the continental shelf. This is different from the west coast, where there basically is no continental shelf. This means you can take a three hour boat ride and wind up 65-70 miles offshore, and be diving a wreck at depths between 130' and 240' or so.

Additionally, currents can be wicked strong. Also critically important is that weather changes can be relatively sudden and frequent. Winds can change direction, seas blow up in a short period of time, and the weather can rapidly turn snotty to include rain, mist, and fog on the heels of a beautiful sunny morning.

Also important, at 65-70 miles offshore you are diving in international shipping lanes. Big freighters can't see a diver drifting in the water at all, they can actually put dive boats themselves in jeopardy, and they can't turn worth crap - and that's if they see you at all. They can simply run you over and never even know it, and there's no way you can swim out of their path in dive gear if they've got you dead in their track.

All that being said, the key factor is if you miss the upline and you have a deco obligation, you can be in a world of hurt IF the weather has gone to hell on the surface while you've been down, IF its getting foggy or a storm is coming up, IF there are strong currents blowing you away from the dive boat, etc. Just blowing a bag and hanging under it for your full deco profile could conceivably have you out of sight of the dive boat by the time you surface. Swells are often 2-3 feet on most days, and if you add waves of 2-3 feet on top of the swells then people really need to be looking to see a diver 70 - 100 yards astern. IF the weather has gone to hell while you've been down and doing drift deco, and the captain has other divers at risk, he can't stay out forever looking for you and put everyone else at risk. You may be drifting for awhile.

(Dive boats on the east coast are not like dive boats in other locations- there are no (or few) "live" boats or 'drift deco' on the east coast. Charter boats anchor in on the wrecks and stay there...if you miss the upline, thats your issue. Don't miss it...)

But the important point is that while the dive boat may have trouble finding a diver adrift in fog 70 miles offshore, the dive boat can ALWAYS find the wreck - because the numbers to the wreck are programmed into the navigation system. So...if the diver can stay with the wreck, regardless of other considerations, then the dive boat will be able to find the diver.

This is why some east coast divers carry up-reels. These are reels of various sizes that carry some 250'-350' of stout nylon cord (or in some cases sissal or hemp cordage). If you miss the upline, you tie off to the wreck and then begin your ascent, slowly paying out the line on the upreel as you ascend. You still need to ascend under complete control, but instead of moving along an anchor line, you ascend holding a reel which is attached to the wreck. When you finish your deco and finally surface, you clip the reel off to your waist D-ring and inflate your surface marker bouys. The line to the wreck prevents you from drifting off into eternity some 70 miles offshore. It guarantees that the dive boat will be able to find you, because the dive boat will always be able to find the wreck.

(The other option is of course to blow the bag, hang beneath it, and ascend on deco while you drift. If you have a scooter and can motor back to the boat upon surfacing, (assuming you can see the boat,) or there are other boats in the area who can pick you up, this works fine. But if luck goes against you, you'll wish you packed a lunch. You may be drifting for a long, long time....and there are accounts right here on ScubaBoard over the past three and four years of divers off the east coast who simply drifted away and were never seen again by the searchers. It happens. Not frequently, but one or two divers each season along the east coast either fail to surface, or are seen on the surface and then disappear, drift away, never to be found.)

So there is the debate...basically from a pro-upreel perspective.

I've no idea what decision-making went through this guy's mind, but if it were me and I had a decision to make regarding whether to conduct a slow ascent and hope I was not a mile or two down-current when I surfaced, or surface closer to the boat and hope they saw me, that would be one hell of a decision. I'm assuming that the 'reel failure' being alluded to was the failure of his upreel - which put him squarely in that position. Looks like he concluded "we can fix bent, but we can't fix 'lost at sea'", and gambled on coming up with ommitted deco to make it back to the boat.

He chose poorly. On the other hand, (not knowing if the weather had changed topside or not,) he could have drifted down-current, surfaced two miles from the boat in fine condition, and never been seen again. Its sort of damned if you do and damned if you don't, given those specific circumstances, in the absence of some means of attaching yourself to the wreck.

Regards,

Doc

 

[DivingCRNA]

I read the same book. If memory serves, he was not using very good line in his reel. Was it line that was bouyant and he got tangled in it?

3 weeks ago I did a deep dive and had to do a free ascent in the lake. We had been QUITE deep and it was the one time I left the reel and bag in my truck because I was not happy with how I was carrying the bag. We did not have a deco obligation, but were cutting it close. It was nerve racking doing the free ascent, but we did it.

I will always take my bag and reel on deep dives now, but I know I CAN do a free ascent if I have to.

The rest of the story-I used the bag yesterday for another long safety stop. The dive was not as deep, but it was longer. We did 5 minutes at 30 feet and 5 minutes at 20 feet and eased on up from there. On both dives described, I knew I did not want to surface fast, even if we were not into deco.

Last night I had soreness in my arms and legs, but remembered my hard work out at the gym on Friday and realized I was not bent, just getting too old to lift weights like that I did get a little fear that I took a hit. I think it was because a friend was teaching deep diving specialty and I listened to the lecture on a surface interval and he told a story where a guy's arms felt funny the night after a dumb dive and he could not move his arms in the morning because he was bent.

Anyway-if I had a choice of being on the surface near the boat and bent or on the surface with the coasties looking for me and NOT BENT, I would take NOT BENT. Especially after reading about Chrissy Rouse's and Bernie Chowhury's experiences getting bent (in The Last Dive).

 

[TSandM]

I have read a lot of the discussions about drift deco versus hanging on a line, and the issues are very real, even to me, who has never been in that position. What baffled me about the account, though, was that, once his upline frayed and broke, he had two choices -- blow off deco and surface at the boat and hope to survive it, or drift. Either he couldn't perform a drift deco ascent, or he made a bad decision that he could blow off that much deco. It does seem like being caught between a rock and a hard place. Do divers on these wrecks ever consider carrying EPIRBs? That's what I've heard the folks diving in the Galapagos do, where currents can be horrible. (It doesn't solve the being run over by a freighter problem, but at least one might be found . . . )

 

[Scubastud16]

EPIRB?

Man, I don't really know what I would do in that situation...

 

[nereas]

Thanks for the info on the book. I think I'll buy it. This is the kind of intrique that I like to read in the winter months when I cannot go diving. Even though we are still at mid-summer, now, winter will come along eventually.

If you have a signalling sausage, and a good cannister light, you should be able to be found by a dive boat, no matter how far you have drifted. They know you are going to be down-current somewhere. I would not rely solely on an EPIRB.

That's why tech agencies teach you to have a backup sausage as well as a primary. Even if the boat does not see your sausage, then you should be able to shine your light at them when they get close, day or night.

I would never blow off a deco obligation. Presumably, anyone who would, either ran out of deco gas, or else panicked. I am guessing it was panic.

Panic is the temptation to ignor your training and do something irrational to reach the security of the surface. Panic kills.

People who cannot stay cool under fire should not be deco diving. Part of the screening process of technical instruction is to weed out such persons from the program.

 

[SteveC]

Although I would hate to make a free ascent while drifting in the open ocean, I would certainly choose it over blowing off a significant decompression obligation.