Shooting a bag (DSMB) in strong current conditions

[Trailboss123]

Anyone have a picture of how to clip the attached SMB and spool to a D ring?

This is how I attach my spool and SMB. Double ender attaches to any D-Ring.

 

[CWK]

Carry a small one for shooting from depth, a large one in the backplate for surface signaling if necessary.

Is this a PADI norm or is it across all affiliations? I did th SSI Extended Range Nitrox course which is about equivalent to Tec40 and there was no mention of this. Perhaps it is in Tec50 or beyond. What length line do you recommend carrying?

 

[CWK]

This is how I attach my spool and SMB. Double ender attaches to any D-Ring.

Thanks for sharing .

I do about the same except I also clip the SMB d-ring at the end.

 

[JohnnyC]

Is this a PADI norm or is it across all affiliations? I did th SSI Extended Range Nitrox course which is about equivalent to Tec40 and there was no mention of this. Perhaps it is in Tec50 or beyond. What length line do you recommend carrying?

I don't know. I don't do the PADI technical stuff.

It's a common sense thing when doing decompression dives in the ocean with variable sea states.

You need to carry enough line to deploy an SMB from depth, plus enough to account for current.

 

[CWK]

Anyone carrying a lift bag instead of a second DSMB?

 

[Compressor]

Nice job by student..

 

[taimen]

OK I need to ask..... why do so many divers see a need to attach the spool to the blob during the launch?

In 30 odd years of diving I've literally never done this. To me it seems like a waste of time and energy. I attach the spool to the blob before the dive and it's all one unit when I want to launch it. I see ZERO added value in delaying this until we want to launch the blob.

Being only a student taking my first steps towards technical training I asked the same question. First answer I got was that you need to have the spool ready for other possible uses. Then I asked wasn't I just told to plan my dive and dive my plan. If the only planned use for my spool is shooting DSMB, why shouldn't I prepare it according to my plan. Where I need a spool without time to detach it from DSMB.
Then the answer changed to task loading for training purposes. That is OK, I understand task loading excercises.
Idea behind repetitive training is building instinct and muscle memory. Thus repeatedly practicing common procedures with unnecessary steps only to increase task loading for training purposes doesn't seem correct. That wouldn't happen in aviation. But I am only a novice in diving.

 

[Compressor]

Idea behind repetitive training is building instinct and muscle memory. Thus repeatedly practicing common procedures with unnecessary steps only to increase task loading for training purposes doesn't seem correct. That wouldn't happen in aviation.

You actually have an excellent point. And you are correct in your thought process. Unncessary steps complicate execution of action and are inefficient.
BTW: We are all novices when it comes to diving. We should always strive to learn.

 

[divinh]

On most boat dives I been on, The boat stays in one place and You have to go back to the boat. If you drift away you get a long surface swim back. Better to do your SS close to the boat and in a place where you have references like close to the reef.

This was true until I started doing drift dives, in which case the boat comes to you after you deploy your DSMB.

 

[JohnnyC]

taiman & compressor, you're missing the point of task loading during training on something like an SMB deployment. The goal isn't to make shooting a bag harder. The SMB isn't the goal. The SMB is the tool that's used to tax other skills like buoyancy and trim. Complicating the deployment of the SMB isn't designed to make you better at shooting a bag, they could do the same thing without having them separate.

Complicating the deployment of the SMB is designed to force the student to deal with multiple variables and direct focus so that none of their expected actions falls outside of the norm. If you can hold a stop, in trim, while putting a spool onto an SMB, and your buddy goes out fo air, and you can safely and effectively deal with the situation, that's the goal. Think about how many PADI students do that ridiculous buddha pose to prove that they've "mastered" buoyancy, only to be all over the reef as soon as they're not solely focused on remaining neutrally buoyant. By task loading the diver during training, they learn to control all variables, so that when they are forced to direct their attention elsewhere, the other stuff doesn't fall to the wayside.

Task loading is well-regarded within all training communities as an effective way to develop skills. You don't need the muscle memory to shoot the bag, but you do to be able to maintain depth and trim while doing so. It becomes even more important once you get into decompression diving, where you may be dealing with all of these things with a decompression ceiling, plus extra cylinders, etc.