My first incident...

[Julius SCHMIDT]

Not much to it

Twins

 

[Christozs]

Having lived 15 years in Scandinavia including 3 years in Copenhagen, diver 1 could be right about chalk content of the fresh water , it is really that bad. So I am not judging on that.

Yes, i can confirm that. But still not sure what is worse for the gear. Salt or chalk?
I always choose to rinse my gear after a dive and always check it before the dive as once after a month of being inactive my primary was stuck when exhaling and air wasn't going out. It was fixed by exhaling harder, a small white cloud came out and then it was working perfectly. I kept testing it until we got in the water though, just to be sure it won't happen again.

Furthermore, you also seem to be receptive to the feedback you’ve gotten so far. That will make you an even better diver in the future.

This is the main reason i made this post. To learn from more experienced divers.
I always read posts about incidents and try to learn from the mistakes before i do them.
And i would like to thank you all for your feedback and advices!

 

[scubaozy]

I always choose to rinse my gear after a dive and always check it before the dive as once after a month of being inactive my primary was stuck when exhaling and air wasn't going out. It was fixed by exhaling harder, a small white cloud came out and then it was working perfectly. I kept testing it until we got in the water though, just to be sure it won't happen again.

That is the exhaust valve of your second stage. It is usually made of silicon and at times it gets stuck after storage. While it can take some abuse, better not to force it; you can dip your second stage into fresh water for 10-15 minutes and gently blow to open it. If you blow it to hard while it is stuck, you might end up blowing the whole thing off the second stage.

 

[Julius SCHMIDT]

I was never able to blow even my deteriorated rubber ones off and I huffed and I puffed until I almost blew the house down

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I think you did a good job.

Get knowlede about doubles and longhoses.
And always always carry at least 1 cutting tool. A knife could be not enough to cut a harnes fast. Trilo is better for that job. Or shears.

Diving in such a cold environment has its own risks.

First, about the shears, try them on a frozen harness before making this statement. I would prefer a high quality, very sharp dive knife over shears. The dive knife should have a part of the edge as a serrated edge, which would handle a frozen harness well.

Concerning the cold environment, ice diving procedures for equipment should be used before trying to dive in these conditions again. This includes using only a regulator with anti-icing features for both the first and second stage.

SeaRat

 

[John C. Ratliff]

The tearing around the upper holes in the back of that wing doesn't make sense. It looks to me like the cylinders and backplate were bolted to the wing through separate holes. The cylinders pulled out of the wing and tore a big enough hole to cause the wing to separate from the backplate, resulting in the cylinders flopping back/over like the Christozs describes.

I have a bit different take on this situation. The wing appears to have been mounted between the tanks and the backplate. As the wing inflated, it pressed the tanks up and away from the backplate, which is no problem under most diving conditions. But when the overpressure relief valve froze shut, the flexible wing continued to exert increasing pressure in opposite directions against the tanks and backplate. Before the bladder failed, it may have been pressing upwards and down to the point of near the interstate pressure, or about 140 pounds per square inch (I wrote that out to show the amount f force applied). Now, with doubles, there were about three inches by the length of the backplate, we'll say a foot lone for each tank.

3" x 12" x 2 = 72 square inches

72 square inches x say 120 pounds per square inch = 8,640 pounds pressure against those two bolts, leading them to pull through the holes in the backplate.

I don't know for sure that this is what happened, and those measurements aren't precise (as I don't know the exact measurements). But if anything, those numbers are conservative.

SeaRat

 

[leadduck]

I don't see how a wing OP valve could ever freeze. There's no significant expansion of air happening in that valve, as opposed to first&second stages. Of course it can fail cause it's broken or full of dirt.

 

[scubaozy]

I don't see how a wing OP valve could ever freeze. There's no significant expansion of air happening in that valve, as opposed to first&second stages. Of course it can fail cause it's broken or full of dirt.

I think this was not adiabatic freeze, it must have been frozen already prior to dive due rest water in the bladder. But I have not seen this type of failure before.