OK, I bought the safety sausage

[pacificgal]

OK, I know that it's important to have safety gear, but I've never been shown how to use it. They don't teach that in OW (and the AOW class doesn't start for another couple months, not sure if they teach it then either).
Common sense tells me to try it out before I have to use it, e.g., probably not smart to inflate if you're not on the surface, I don't think you should be using it for buoyancy, it's just a signaling device, right?
What are these lift bags I keep reading about, and in which class would you learn how to use those? S & R?

 

[Humuhumunukunukuapua'a]

S&R will probably give you some basic lift bag training. Lift bags can be used as surface markers, but they can also be used to lift heavy things off the bottom.

You can "shoot" a sausage from depth provided it is either open at the bottom or has a overpressure relief valve. In that case, you'd want a reel or a spool.

Alternately, just stick it in your BC pocket or bungee it to the bottom of your plate and use it at the surface should you ever need to signal someone. Not a lot to practice with that. You just inflate it, usually with your second stage, and then hold it so it sticks up in the air so someone will see you.

Cheers

 

[Diver Dennis]

You should practice shooting it from you safety stop depth of around 15'. It is used to signal your boat but also to let other boats in the area know where you are so you don't get run over. A reel is a must have. I also have my name stenciled on mine as I do a lot of solo and the boat knows it's me. You see the name a lot in the Philippines and that's where I got the idea.

 

[MoonWrasse]

Congrats! That's often my suggested first piece of dive gear to obtain.

You should practice using it before you need to. Attaching it to a Dring with a brass side bolt is what some do, the brass side bolt will weight the line, which is important. Not having a taunt line, if you unspool the line it will float and once you inflate the sausage you can easily become entangled, yanking you to the surface.

It might be a good idea to watch closely your DM when they do this on your next dive

 

[Jeff Toorish]

If it's a lift bag and about five or six feet, I'd shoot it from about 30 feet. I've seen a lot of these things laying on their side on the surface because the air in them didn't expand enough to fill them when shot from too shallow a depth.

Of course the size of the bag will make a difference.

Jeff

 

[TSandM]

I learned how to deploy an SMB in Fundies.

If you don't have anybody around who can show you, you can buy the Essentials DVD which has a video sequence of SMB deployment. It's not terribly hard, but it's important to control your buoyancy if you are shooting the bag from depth, because it will tend to drag you up as long as soon as you inflate it. And there are safety concerns, as well, as you can read here.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Here's a couple of pictures. I have 2 different sizes depending on the dive and in heavy current I might take both. The names aren't pretty but it does the job. I leave my reel attached and stuff the small one in my pocket and clip the big one to my BC.

 

[neonstingray]

You may also have one of the simple closed kinds with just a mouthpiece and no overpressure valve, which are supposed to just be used on the surface, not from depth. You just unroll it, blow it up with the mouth valve, and wave it at the boat.

Austin

 

[Diver Dennis]

The small one I have does not have the over-inflation valve but I shoot it from my safety stop. Just don't fill it up all the way. The reason I always shoot a bag is because the areas I dive in usually have a fair bit of boat traffic and a sausage will keep you from getting run over. It depends where you dive but I think it is always a good idea for you or your buddy to always shoot a bag.

 

[Guba]

Most posters have given very good explanations about how to deploy the SS, so I won't add to that. However, there is something I have found useful with mine. I attached 18 feet of line on mine so I could deploy it from safety stop depth. I wound the cord around a Cyalume stick (chemical light stick) and attached a whistle to that. That way, I always have an additional light source (especially if stranded at night with a flooded primary) and a sound producer. This is good even if you already have a siren or whistle that attaches to your inflator. All these items fit in a small pocket on my BC strap and provide backups to existing gear while taking up almost no space or weight.