Lift bag vs SMB

[idocsteve]

So yeah. I know colour blindness isn't that common but it's one in seven.

Closer to 1 in 10. Males only.

This is because the gene for Red/Green Color deficiency is transmitted via the X Chromosome and is recessive, the term is "recessive X-linked genetic disorder" and is responsible for Hemophilia A, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, red-green color blindness, Muscular dystrophy and Androgenetic alopecia (yes I cheated and Googled this part).

A woman would have to be double recessive to be colorblind and that's extremely rare, a fraction of a percent.

All colorblind men will give the gene to their daughters who will be carriers, and of children born to those daughters, half of their sons will be colorblind and half of their daughters will be carriers. A father cannot pass the gene to his son because he gives the son his Y chromosome.

 

[Diver0001]

Steve... I think we finally found our common ground...

Would you agree with my assessment that Orange isn't the best colour for a DSMB?

R..

 

[idocsteve]

Would you agree with my assessment that Orange isn't the best colour for a DSMB?

Yes. And despite my knowledge of color deficiency it would never have occurred to me that makers of those items don't realize that about 1 in 10 boat Captains won't see them as the rest of us do.

 

[Wookie]

Actually, Orange is not a good alternative and I'll tell you why.

For someone who can see colour, orange shows up just fine against a wide range of backgrounds.

But not everyone can see colour.

Case in point (saw this coming, didn' you).... me

I have protanopia. Basically either my eyes are physically unable to register reds (ie. no cones) or my brain can't interpret the signals. In either case, reds are by far the *dimmest* colours in my world. Red traffic lights sometimes look turned off to me. It's that bad.

So an Orange DSMB on a dark blue background will be hard for me to see and if the sun is low, causing a lot of red ambient light, then you can totally forget it. You could be invisible to me at as little as 200 metres away.

The fluorescent green ones, however.... Beacons! When I golf I use the green balls and they show up like stars in the heavens even on the green grass. A red ball on green grass would be invisible to me even if I were more or less standing on it.

So yeah. I know colour blindness isn't that common but it's one in seven. That means that if you're using an Orange DSMB that something like 14% of the people who might be looking for you proably can't see it.

My 2c

R..

All licensed mariners can see color. It's IMO regulations. But I got your point.

 

[idocsteve]

All licensed mariners can see color. It's IMO regulations. But I got your point.

He didn't say that they can't.

He said that "not everyone can see color", and that's true.

But not everyone can see colour.

It would be like me saying "It doesn't always rain on the weekends" and then you saying "sometimes it rains on the weekends, that's the weather. But I got your point".

 

[Doc Harry]

Yellow is the color choice for visibility. The military and other agencies have done numerous studies of signaling devices over the years, and yellow wins over all other colors.

Given that is old news, I wonder why so many companies still continue to manufacture SMBs in orange.

Halcyon makes a yellow 6-foot SMB but the material is so thin that I would avoid it.

To answer the question in the OP, smaller 3-foot SMBs are easier to inflate and sent up. I also carry a yellow 6-foot SMB for when I am actually on the surface.