How often do you need a 400ft primary reel?

[EireDiver606]

Reels aren’t just for cave diving.
They are often used in jobs underwater like archaeological/ scientifically diving.
Can also be used to find the wreck in low visibility when the shot line isn’t directly on the wreck.

 

[EireDiver606]

The locking screw that won't come out seems innocuous until you lose the locking screw and your reel turns into a spinning ball of entanglement and death. +1 for halcyon over lm in this regard

You should be conscious enough when using a reel that you don’t encounter pulling it the whole way through the line guider.
It is a huge PITA to put it back in again with thick gloves. In c1, instructor cuts the ball off the end of the line because they are unnecessary, kind of like training wheels for a bicycle.

 

[flymolo]

Agree with this. However I'm not talking about the line guider- talking about the actual screw that locks the spool. Ideally it should never fall out but on occasion if you're not careful when spooling out line it can catch the locking screw and unscrew it.

 

[flymolo]

In addition, if you do pull it through the guider you can still loop it over the screw and lock it off as you normally would. Provided you still have the screw

 

[kensuf]

So this thread, like so many others, has evolved a bit and a lot of discussion about lost line drills has come up in here. I figure I'll don my nomex suit on this fine Monday morning and wade in full and share my opinion on the subject.

I'm in the "you need to try it, but not complete it" camp. My philosophy on this is based on a very thoughtful article that I came across in the NSS-CDS instructor guide, which was written in the early 80s. Since I do not have the instructor guide with me (it's at home, I'm not), I'll have to paraphrase it.

Paraphrased text follows
The "best" lost line drill is one where the student never finds the line. The reasoning behind this is the primary purpose of the skill is to emphasize line awareness and how important it is to never lose the line to begin with. If a student were to easily find the line during training they may get the mistaken belief that it is not very difficult to find the line, and therefore become complacent with their own line awareness. On the other hand, if they struggle to find the line for a lengthy period of time, especially if they find out how close the line was once the drill is aborted, it will likely drive home the message that it is better to never lose the line, rather than giving them a misplaced sense of confidence that forces them to rely on a skill that may never be practiced outside of training.

So, I happen to agree with that philosophy and am really happy when I have to abort a lost line drill after 15 or more minutes and when the student finds out the line was no more than 10' away, they really appreciate the value of not losing the line to begin with.

 

[1atm]

So this thread, like so many others, has evolved a bit and a lot of discussion about lost line drills has come up in here. I figure I'll don my nomex suit on this fine Monday morning and wade in full and share my opinion on the subject.

I'm in the "you need to try it, but not complete it" camp. My philosophy on this is based on a very thoughtful article that I came across in the NSS-CDS instructor guide, which was written in the early 80s. Since I do not have the instructor guide with me (it's at home, I'm not), I'll have to paraphrase it.

Paraphrased text follows
The "best" lost line drill is one where the student never finds the line. The reasoning behind this is the primary purpose of the skill is to emphasize line awareness and how important it is to never lose the line to begin with. If a student were to easily find the line during training they may get the mistaken belief that it is not very difficult to find the line, and therefore become complacent with their own line awareness. On the other hand, if they struggle to find the line for a lengthy period of time, especially if they find out how close the line was once the drill is aborted, it will likely drive home the message that it is better to never lose the line, rather than giving them a misplaced sense of confidence that forces them to rely on a skill that may never be practiced outside of training.

So, I happen to agree with that philosophy and am really happy when I have to abort a lost line drill after 15 or more minutes and when the student finds out the line was no more than 10' away, they really appreciate the value of not losing the line to begin with.

I understand the point and agree that it’s an important learning to better not lose the line. Curious question then to you as an experienced instructor would be: how do you make sure this learning does take place? Does the student who successfully stumbles across the line in minimal time then come away with a less impactful education? How do you “industrialize” and standardize this learning experience? I’m not trying to be difficult but genuinely curious how to make better divers after all.

 

[rddvet]

So this thread, like so many others, has evolved a bit and a lot of discussion about lost line drills has come up in here. I figure I'll don my nomex suit on this fine Monday morning and wade in full and share my opinion on the subject.

I'm in the "you need to try it, but not complete it" camp. My philosophy on this is based on a very thoughtful article that I came across in the NSS-CDS instructor guide, which was written in the early 80s. Since I do not have the instructor guide with me (it's at home, I'm not), I'll have to paraphrase it.

Paraphrased text follows
The "best" lost line drill is one where the student never finds the line. The reasoning behind this is the primary purpose of the skill is to emphasize line awareness and how important it is to never lose the line to begin with. If a student were to easily find the line during training they may get the mistaken belief that it is not very difficult to find the line, and therefore become complacent with their own line awareness. On the other hand, if they struggle to find the line for a lengthy period of time, especially if they find out how close the line was once the drill is aborted, it will likely drive home the message that it is better to never lose the line, rather than giving them a misplaced sense of confidence that forces them to rely on a skill that may never be practiced outside of training.

So, I happen to agree with that philosophy and am really happy when I have to abort a lost line drill after 15 or more minutes and when the student finds out the line was no more than 10' away, they really appreciate the value of not losing the line to begin with.

Who let this guy in here.

 

[rddvet]

I understand the point and agree that it’s an important learning to better not lose the line. Curious question then to you as an experienced instructor would be: how do you make sure this learning does take place? Does the student who successfully stumbles across the line in minimal time then come away with a less impactful education? How do you “industrialize” and standardize this learning experience? I’m not trying to be difficult but genuinely curious how to make better divers after all.

My cavern and cave 1 instructor made me do it again because it was too easy the first time. So he made it much harder and it took me about 10 minutes or so. That did the job pretty good of reinforcing knowing where the line was. What really solidified always knowing where the line is was in Cave 2 when one of the students actually put us in a real silt out condition. Hopefully no instructor is doing that, but I have heard some of the stories from a few years back of an instructor intentionally silting out a passage as a learning experience. Not smart.

 

[tbone1004]

My cavern and cave 1 instructor made me do it again because it was too easy the first time. So he made it much harder and it took me about 10 minutes or so. That did the job pretty good of reinforcing knowing where the line was. What really solidified always knowing where the line is was in Cave 2 when one of the students actually put us in a real silt out condition. Hopefully no instructor is doing that, but I have heard some of the stories from a few years back of an instructor intentionally silting out a passage as a learning experience. Not smart.

I still have the video of mine in Madison. The line was down in a crevice and I went over it about 3 times. Took 8-10 minutes to find it on that one.

 

[kensuf]

My cavern and cave 1 instructor made me do it again because it was too easy the first time. So he made it much harder and it took me about 10 minutes or so. That did the job pretty good of reinforcing knowing where the line was. What really solidified always knowing where the line is was in Cave 2 when one of the students actually put us in a real silt out condition. Hopefully no instructor is doing that, but I have heard some of the stories from a few years back of an instructor intentionally silting out a passage as a learning experience. Not smart.

I don't know anyone that intentionally causes silt-outs anymore, but yeah I knew some of those guys. And those behaviors are part of the reasons I became a cave instructor.