Ice diver's rope snapped - Cold Stream Pond, Maine

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I did not say HE was dumb; I said "the ability to tie a bowline with one hand while wearing a 3-finger mitten" was dumb as a requirement for OW students.

Do you know why he does it? Do you know that his students are undergraduate and graduate students at a major oceanography institution and dive in very cold waters around the world? His "OW" course is a semester long that includes 12 dives. He makes his students do lots of things that help them become very capable scientific divers.

I dove and worked with this course graduates, they are some of the best divers graduating from an entry level dive course I have seen anywhere. Too bad that he retired.
 
Do you know why he does it? Do you know that his students are undergraduate and graduate students and a major oceanography institution and dive in very cold waters around the world? His "OW" course is a semester long that includes 12 dives. He makes his students do lots of things that help them become very capable scientific divers.

I dove and worked with this course graduates, they are some of the best divers graduating from an entry level dive course I have seen anywhere. Too bad that he retired.
I am also a graduate of a semester-long OW class (NAUI) at a major oceanographic institution. The class covered much of Rescue and AOW, and some of DM, including dives, but all we got was an OW card. We were also being trained as science divers. I do NOT consider the course I took as "entry-level" and we did NOT have to tie a one-handed bowline u/w with a three-fingered mitt, even those we wore such gloves because it was New England. It is marginal if such a requirement would have been appropriate for our class, and it is definitely dumb for an actual OW (i.e., actual entry-level) class. I also do not consider the class your guy taught as an OW class; it was much more than that, yet it was for an actual OW class that I made my comment.
I'm sorry if I threw shade on your hero.
 
I am also a graduate of a semester-long OW class (NAUI) at a major oceanographic institution. The class covered much of Rescue and AOW, and some of DM, including dives, but all we got was an OW card. We were also being trained as science divers. I do NOT consider the course I took as "entry-level" and we did NOT have to tie a one-handed bowline u/w with a three-fingered mitt, even those we wore such gloves because it was New England. It is marginal if such a requirement would have been appropriate for our class, and it is definitely dumb for an actual OW (i.e., actual entry-level) class. I also do not consider the class your guy taught as an OW class; it was much more than that, yet it was for an actual OW class that I made my comment.
I'm sorry if I threw shade on your hero.

I find it very strange that you are passing judgement without knowing the full story and all the facts. You don't even know the rationale for this type of exercise yet you pass judgement.
 
I find it very strange that you are passing judgement without knowing the full story and all the facts. You don't even know the rationale for this type of exercise yet you pass judgement.
It was stated that he required the knot as part of an OW class. I responded to that. Yes, more info might have been helpful, but it would not have changed my judgement. It is a dumb thing to require as part of an OW class.
 
Driven out through ineptitude!

Too bad that most of the greats have left SB.

So whatever happened to the most magnificent mind Thalassamania

More than a decade ago when I was fresh and naive to the bias
Thalassamania sent me a supportive friend request whilst the board aligned were like bugs on my windscreen
 
No harness, no dive... Even with a bp/w, the harness was on under it, and the tether connected to it (not your rig) with a LOCKING carbiner (actually 2 anchor points). Tether was, iirc, 3/8 poly, and we had lessons on how to make the end loops.

Fun as all heck diving if you follow the protocols.
Exactly, We had 3/4" Polypro line with 2 eyes spliced into the rope. A commercial diving harness on under our back-pack rig. Then two LOCKING carabiners, through the spliced eyes and attached to the two attachment points of the harness.

Nothing short of a katana would separate the diver from the tending line...

Ice diving is great because the fish do not move quickly. It is great swimming next to a 4' Tiger Muskie. You usually at best just see the tail, as it swims away....
Ice diving is definitely worth the additional training and hassle.
 
I miss your arguments with him. That was the best part about SB then. Too bad that most of the greats have left SB.
I had many an argument with him over many a subject over a number of years. In one argument about this specific topic, he said most divers will someday have to tie a one-handed bowline while wearing a 3-fingered mitten, and when they absolutely needed to do it is not the time to wish they had that skill. I replied that the only 3-fingered mittens I had seen on my life were on a shelf in a scuba shop storage room, and I was not sure I had ever seen a diver tie a knot of any kind in the water outside of training. He was not impressed with my experience. I had obviously had a very sheltered diving life.
BoulderJohn,

I wore 3-finger mitts for a while in the 1960s; we used to make them ourselves as the commercial gloves were very cold (let a lot of water into the glove when flexing the hands). We’d simply outline our hand with our last three fingers together, cut it out of 1/8 inch neoprene sheet, and double-glue the edges. Those 1/8th inch neoprene mitts were warmer than 1/4 inch gloves sewn together (all those little holes leaked water).

Now, on to another subject, knots underwater. Anyone here know of the butterfly know? It’s a great, and pretty easy, way of putting a non-permanent look in the middle of a line. I’ve used it underwater an a number of occasions. Once in, you can put a weight belt, or other stuff, on the loop and go away, come back and take that piece out of the look, then remove the loop quickly and easily. It cannot be over tightened so that it is difficult to remove.

SeaRat
 

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