Preferred redundant buoyancy when diving wet?

[danvolker]

I have a dual bladder wing, and I like it fine. I don't have the blackup bladder LP inflator connected unless I need it (which has only been in training). In my opinion, water in the 80s with surface temps over 100 degrees, a drysuit poses a significant risk to me in terms of heat-related problems like heat exhaustion & heat stroke. Before some of you go making assumptions about dehydration and other crap, just don't bother - I drink over a gallon of water a day (more on days I'm diving/out in the heat) and am not unfit/obese/whatever.

Yes - I can swim my rig up.
Yes - I can send up a lift bag and line climb
Yes - I can inflate a lift bag and use it to make a controlled ascent

I basically don't want to have to do any of those things when I have a better, in my opinion - for me, option. If I am well into a deco obligation, the last thing I want to do is exert a good bit of effort and energy to complete my run schedule. Wouldn't it be easier to do gas switches neutrally buoyant, rather than trying to swim up, hold a line, or hold on to a lift bag to stay at a depth? To me that answer is yes. YMMV....

I could say my dive buddy(s) would also be redundant bouyancy

 

[James R]

I could say my dive buddy(s) would also be redundant bouyancy

I wouldn't disagree with that. What if you are separated from your team/buddy? Being prepared to finish your dive alone is pretty important as we often dive in less than 3' viz at depth, so it's not uncommon to do so.

I guess you could crawl up the lake bottom too, if you had to

 

[Ana]

I have a dual bladder wing, and I like it fine. I don't have the blackup bladder LP inflator connected unless I need it (which has only been in training). In my opinion, water in the 80s with surface temps over 100 degrees, a drysuit poses a significant risk to me in terms of heat-related problems like heat exhaustion & heat stroke. Before some of you go making assumptions about dehydration and other crap, just don't bother - I drink over a gallon of water a day (more on days I'm diving/out in the heat) and am not unfit/obese/whatever.

Yes - I can swim my rig up.
Yes - I can send up a lift bag and line climb
Yes - I can inflate a lift bag and use it to make a controlled ascent

I basically don't want to have to do any of those things when I have a better, in my opinion - for me, option. If I am well into a deco obligation, the last thing I want to do is exert a good bit of effort and energy to complete my run schedule. Wouldn't it be easier to do gas switches neutrally buoyant, rather than trying to swim up, hold a line, or hold on to a lift bag to stay at a depth? To me that answer is yes. YMMV....

I'm not sure we are saying something different... Devon called it having a "balanced rig" , DanV and I talked about swimming the rig up, trully complicated if the gear is not somehow balanced.

What you say makes perfect sense to me, from the choice of suit under said parameters, to the desire of being neutrally buoyant. I interpreted the initial post as what to do for buoyancy when something goes wrong.

 

[danvolker]

I wouldn't disagree with that. What if you are separated from your team/buddy? Being prepared to finish your dive alone is pretty important as we often dive in less than 3' viz at depth, so it's not uncommon to do so.

I guess you could crawl up the lake bottom too, if you had to

Less than 3 feet of vis, deep.... Been there, done that, did not like it....this is called pulling the thumb, long before lift is an issue.

But hey, if you can have fun in that, more power to you....with conditions that bad, you are really getting into the gear set for Public Safety divers and Black water diving. They have solutions for them...things we would not use, but for the 3 foot or less lake dives, it might make for some interesting reading

 

[Akimbo]

Interesting scenario: Too much weight to swim up due to wetsuit compression or flooded drysuit, having incurred decompression obligation, and a BC failure. I see three options:

• If you have a SMB, fold it to limit inflation and keep the dump sting in hand.
• If you have an SMB you probably also have a reel. Tie the sting to your weight belt and drop it. Ascend using reel for stops and belt recovery.
• I dove with a guy in Norway who used two belts. One was a wide and comfortable commercial style belt without shoulder straps and worn high on the waist. The other was a Marseille-style rubber belt popular with freedivers worn very low on the butt/hips. That allowed dropping less weight to avoid an uncontrolled ascent. Even though he would be buoyant at a decompression stop, he could swim down against it.

 

[Adobo]

I wouldn't disagree with that. What if you are separated from your team/buddy? Being prepared to finish your dive alone is pretty important as we often dive in less than 3' viz at depth, so it's not uncommon to do so.

I guess you could crawl up the lake bottom too, if you had to

Don't you end your dive on your first major failure of the dive (buddy separation)? If so, are you always planning for two major failures for recreational dives?

In truth, I tend to be on Dan's camp on this topic. If someone were at a 100ft and couldn't swim up a single tank because their wetsuit compressed, then I would argue that the first major failure was in planning the dive to use the wrong equipment in the first place. The second major failure was the wing. And in the scenario you describe, separation from the buddy is the third major failure.

 

[James R]

Don't you end your dive on your first major failure of the dive (buddy separation)? If so, are you always planning for two major failures for recreational dives?

In truth, I tend to be on Dan's camp on this topic. If someone were at a 100ft and couldn't swim up a single tank because their wetsuit compressed, then I would argue that the first major failure was in planning the dive to use the wrong equipment in the first place. The second major failure was the wing. And in the scenario you describe, separation from the buddy is the third major failure.

I guess it would help if we had defined the topic at hand a bit better.

If you are talking about a recreational dive, I agree with you. Look around for a minute then surface to find your buddy if you can't find him or her is the normal protocol for losing your buddy. If I am diving single tank (recreational) I don't have, or need, a dual bladder wing. I can easily swim up a single tank, or use the other methods I mentioned to make the ascent even easier.

I made my previous posts in this thread thinking about technical diving, not recreational. Swimming up steel doubles and a couple deco bottles is a completely different scenario than a single cylinder recreational failure.

 

[Adobo]

I guess it would help if we had defined the topic at hand a bit better.

If you are talking about a recreational dive, I agree with you. Look around for a minute then surface to find your buddy if you can't find him or her is the normal protocol for losing your buddy. If I am diving single tank (recreational) I don't have, or need, a dual bladder wing. I can easily swim up a single tank, or use the other methods I mentioned to make the ascent even easier.

I made my previous posts in this thread thinking about technical diving, not recreational. Swimming up steel doubles and a couple deco bottles is a completely different scenario than a single cylinder recreational failure.

I assumed recreational dive given the OP's reference to a wetsuit. Of course, there is no reason not to do a tech dive with a wetsuit assuming the water temperature is conducive to that. I imagine though that, again, equipment choice is critical. If I were going to do a tech dive in open water in a wetsuit, I sure as heck would not do it using steel tanks. Furthermore, I would try to mitigate some of the risks associated with loss of buoyancy by using a gas that is lighter.

In either case, tech dive or recreational dive in a 7mil farmer john, I am of the impression that "convoluted" solutions are not required to deal with loss of buoyancy if the dive is planned to use the right tanks, gas and ballast (weight belt) in the first place.

And going back to Dan's original point, my buddy is useful as redundant buoyancy. In either a tech dive or a recreational dive, if I misplace my buddy, I am not going to wait for a second failure like a busted wing before I end the dive.

 

[Max Speed]

To clarify a few things:

Recreational dive.

22 lbs lead plus SS backplate plus a 19CF pony.

Balancing the rig is not possible. To put it in perspective, with an otherwise identical setup no lead is required in a 2.5 mil wetsuit. I suspect the "balance the rig" school dives in warm water.

I cannot "swim it up" from depth. Maybe Johnny Weismuller could. Swimming it up from about 40'-60' is easy with the improved buoyancy.

I do not own a double bladder wing although that is a good solution. A dry suit is another great option but I do not dive dry except in winter.

I never thought of folding up the SMB to keep the air at the bottom. I will try that. I normally carry both a lift bag and an SMB.

Never thought of leaving the weight belt on the bottom and reeling up from it. Interesting option if there's a convenient bottom. I'll try it for practice.

Looks like the best option is still the lift bag with an SMB for additional redundancy.

No, I do not look to a buddy for a primary solution to a problem. That is a good way to die.

 

[RTee]

For rec diving using single tank, swimming the rig up should not be a problem. if so, then you should be able to get rid of just enough weight to do so. Unless I dive doubles, I rarely carry my lift bag under water however, I always carry a SMB of some sort. The two I have are a 3ft long 10 lbs lift and a six ft long 20lbs lift. Any one of these should be enough to assist me on the way up as I would not need to fill them completely but just enough to be able to swim my rig up and hold it in such a way that I could activate the purge on the way up to control the ascent.

For my set of doubles, I normally dive using my drysuit. However, one of the thing I did for my AN/DP course was to add a second wing to my SSBP\Wg set-up as I not only dive steel tanks but also carry two stage bottles (one 80cft and one 40 cft). In addition, I also carry a 50 lbs lift bag. Therefore, I do have many back-ups I can revert to in case of a main Wg failure...second wing, drysuit and lift bag.

This summer I did a couple of rec dives with my doubles wearing only a 7mm suit without the shorty because the water was warm enough to do so. There were all shore diving and if need be, I could have crawled my way back to the surface...had my main wg, alt wg and lift bag had all failed me...