Shooting a Sausage

[Jrock1062]

My preference is to dump gas from the wing into the bag via the inflator. The transfer is almost 100% efficient so when the wing is empty you are still neutral. You can then hit the inflator with the dump button still depressed and send air straight into the bag. And when you overcome inertia and just start to rise, release the bag as well as the dump button, but keep the inflator depressed. Upon bag release you are suddenly negative which kills the rise, and in the few seconds it takes to overcome inertia and start to sink, you will have added the gas back into the wing and will again be neutral. The result is very little change in depth, even whan launching a large lift bag or large SMB.

How would you do this without being positive? when I shot my SMB from 30ft which I do on all my recreational drift dives in Jupiter I have almost no air in my wing if i had to fill the wing then transfer that into the SMB i am thinking I would be well on my way to a very fast ascent although i havent tried it
What works for me is to hold the reel and reg in my right hand and the SMB in my Left if the reel locks up or it starts to pull me up i let everything go the bag goes up the reel goes down and i grab my reg I can alway retrieve the gear after the stop
As to the original posters question I asked the DM,s that i have dove with for some help and started there then they went over shooting a bag\SMB in intro to tec

 

[DA Aquamaster]

In shallow water at the end of a dive you do have almost no gas in the wing - assuming you are properly weighted.

However at depth in doubles with a decent reserve or in a wet suit, you will still have gas in the wing.

Even if you do not have gas in the wing, you can still hold the inflator and dump buttons down and add the gas directly into the bag with no air going into the wing. That lets you use the same approach regardless of the situaion so you only have to practice one technique.

Shooting a large bag or large SMB from a shallow depth like 30' is problematic as you'd have to get it half full at depth to get it full on the surface. It is a lot easier to shoot if from a deeper depth. If you launch from a shallow depth, you are limited to a much smaller bag or SMB if you need it to be full on the surface.

One advantage of having the bag and inflator in the same hand and the spool in the other hand is that you can keep everything where you can see it with the line clearly leading out away from the bag and inflator so you can visually confirm nothing is hung up when shooting the bag.

The same basic approach works if you exhale into the bag - hold the bag over you with reel or spool in the other hand out away from any potential entanglement.

----

Reels are, in my opinon, not a great idea when launching a bag. A reel can jam and even under the best of conditions, it is going to be spinning very fast during the launch and it it jams, the reel and bag are gone. Not so cool in a current if you need an upline or a deco hang line. A spool on the other hand, assuming it is properly loaded and not a tangled mess, is virtually jam proof and if it slips from between your fingers during the launch it will just sit in front of you and sort of dance as it unspools. When the bag reaches the surface, you just reach out and retrieve the spool in front of you.

 

[String]

I understand this isn't part of ANY PADI course. Wondered if it's part of any course? Seems to me that it's a basic skill that a DM would require. Thoughts? Comments?

PADI have adopted it as a speciality course as of about 2 years ago so it is there. Although quite how anyone has the gaul to charge someone money for teaching such a skill i dont know.

Other agencies such as BSAC,ScotSAC etc its mandatory from an early stage in the core course.

 

[drdaddy]

In shallow water at the end of a dive you do have almost no gas in the wing - assuming you are properly weighted.

However at depth in doubles with a decent reserve or in a wet suit, you will still have gas in the wing.

Even if you do not have gas in the wing, you can still hold the inflator and dump buttons down and add the gas directly into the bag with no air going into the wing. That lets you use the same approach regardless of the situaion so you only have to practice one technique.

Shooting a large bag or large SMB from a shallow depth like 30' is problematic as you'd have to get it half full at depth to get it full on the surface. It is a lot easier to shoot if from a deeper depth. If you launch from a shallow depth, you are limited to a much smaller bag or SMB if you need it to be full on the surface.

One advantage of having the bag and inflator in the same hand and the spool in the other hand is that you can keep everything where you can see it with the line clearly leading out away from the bag and inflator so you can visually confirm nothing is hung up when shooting the bag.

The same basic approach works if you exhale into the bag - hold the bag over you with reel or spool in the other hand out away from any potential entanglement.

----

Reels are, in my opinon, not a great idea when launching a bag. A reel can jam and even under the best of conditions, it is going to be spinning very fast during the launch and it it jams, the reel and bag are gone. Not so cool in a current if you need an upline or a deco hang line. A spool on the other hand, assuming it is properly loaded and not a tangled mess, is virtually jam proof and if it slips from between your fingers during the launch it will just sit in front of you and sort of dance as it unspools. When the bag reaches the surface, you just reach out and retrieve the spool in front of you.

Does this work 100% of the time? I didn't think that this was such a big deal. My PADI Instructor son is going to demonstrate/train me on this next time we go out, but we have not been able to coordinate things yet. I've been carrying a reel, just in case I needed one (I always carry a DAN sausage/lift), but it sounds like this could really be dangerous.

One reason I want to use a reel and lift is when I find crab-rings or (small) anchors (10-20 lbs), I could send up the sausage and retrieve the item at the end of the dive. Also, in case I needed a marker above.

Thank you,
drdaddy

 

[String]

Seen many instances of the spool not staying in front especially with windy surface conditions and/or varying direction currents. Also seen people miss grab it and watched it sink past them unwinding.

Neither reels not spools are perfect - both can jam or snag in various ways. Both work once you learn how to use them properly.

I wish the idiotic dropping a weight with string attached method were outlawed completely though.

 

[dbulmer]

String,
"Idiotic dropping a weight with string method " - I'm not familiar with that, can you explain it?

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

Shooting a small SMB with a finger spool was part of my AOW Drift Dive. That may be LDS and location-specific: It was the St. Lawrence River, and there is boat traffic and shipping overhead if you drift off an anchor line. That LDS requires AOW or PADI Drift Specialty to go on their charters.

That being said, charter operators do not demand that you carry one, and at least one other LDS operates charters into the area for OW divers, so... Obviously there is no consensus that you need to carry and know how to use one even if you are operating in a river with ripping currents, personal watercraft, and freighters chugging to and fro.

Insert rolleyes smily here

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Seen many instances of the spool not staying in front especially with windy surface conditions and/or varying direction currents. Also seen people miss grab it and watched it sink past them unwinding.

Neither reels not spools are perfect - both can jam or snag in various ways. Both work once you learn how to use them properly.

With either one, if you want 100% reliability, you need to run the spool or reel back out on land and then rewind the line neatly back on the spool or reel to ensure it will come off smoothly and evenly. Loose and squiggly looking line will not come off smoothly.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Does this work 100% of the time? I didn't think that this was such a big deal. My PADI Instructor son is going to demonstrate/train me on this next time we go out, but we have not been able to coordinate things yet. I've been carrying a reel, just in case I needed one (I always carry a DAN sausage/lift), but it sounds like this could really be dangerous.

This method has worked 100% of the time for me. I have in my early days of bag shooting with different methods I sent myself up with a bag once when I became tangled in the line or strap on the bag.

Attention to detail is important. Sending yourself up from 30 ft is not that big a deal, sending your self up from the bottom or a deep deco stop can be fatal, so you want to get it right before you do it for real, and you want a contingency plan for cutting away from the bag if that happens. Cutting a line is fairly easy, cutting a nylon strap - not so easy but then if you are that close to the bag you can usually spill or dump the air anyway - you just want to think it through in advance so you don't have to figure out the solution after something happens.

Small SMB's do not have huge amounts of lift, but a 100 lb lift bag can get serious fairly quickly, especially if the line snags on you when the bag is half way up from depth with 50 or so pounds of lift, so after launch hold the spool or reel out away from you where it will not catch on you and where you can easily just let it go if the spool or reel jams.

 

[String]

String,
"Idiotic dropping a weight with string method " - I'm not familiar with that, can you explain it?

No reel, no spool. Just a lead weight attached to one end of some string and an SMB to the other stuffed into a pocket.
To send up they inflate the bag and drop the weight. Usually onto the reef, other divers, tangled around themselves or anything else etc. It seems very popular abroad where people only use a bag maybe once a year.