Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
flymolo
Contributor
Below works for me for OW dives. Max length is 60m (but small enough to still fit in a thigh pocket) so safe to shoot from 40m to account for scope to surface. Deeper than that and time to clip on some industrial strength danglies (reels).
The problem isn't spooling out - most spools you can hold between thumb and forefinger as the SMB ascends and the spool whizzes around in your hand.
Had one of those a while back and am not a fan. Sold it on very quickly. It's awkward to hold one-handed (because you hold the spool in one hand with the nozzle/inflator held to the spool as you use the other hand to get the drysuit inflator disconnected and connected to the inflator); the thick string bunches up as you wind it in such that the spool holes are covered by the string; the screw lock seems like a cave reel and not an SMB spool. Drop the thing and it too goes down to Nelson's locker.
Classic design that solves the wrong problem.
This Custom Diver pocket reel fixes the problem and works well enough (for a tiny reel). Fits well inside a drysuit pocket and is the same size as a spool, but without the party-piece: drop it and it stops reeling out.
Here's the 100m/330' primary reel and CO2 cartridge SMB -- can be deployed in 15 seconds.
PfcAJ
Contributor
flymolo
Contributor
imo, this is about as intricate as it needs to get-
primed:
unprimed:
primed:
unprimed:
flymolo
Contributor
beester
Contributor
Halcyon also started making big smb's (6ft) that are not very wide. They only used to have the long ones that were also wide, but that changed because a well known GUE instructor asked specifically to fabricate him a less wide long model.
Halcyon Dive Systems
Long enough to get noticed in a bit more interesting wave action, but thin enough so they will be easy enough to inflate so they arrive at the surface full.
I have a couple of those. The thin 1m (3ft) long ones are next to useless in real circumstances, they are good for practicing in lakes ;-)
I typically shoot the bag after the 21 m gas switch or deeper. Typically when the ascend starts to really slow down. Depends a bit on the type of ascend. If it's a drifting ascend you don't want to shoot to close to the surface and risk having the boat not seeing your smb because you already drifted too far away from the wreck. (This by the way requires all the teams on the wreck to dive more or less the same profile and ascend more or less at the same time, otherwise it becomes a cluster ****)
Halcyon Dive Systems
Long enough to get noticed in a bit more interesting wave action, but thin enough so they will be easy enough to inflate so they arrive at the surface full.
I have a couple of those. The thin 1m (3ft) long ones are next to useless in real circumstances, they are good for practicing in lakes ;-)
I typically shoot the bag after the 21 m gas switch or deeper. Typically when the ascend starts to really slow down. Depends a bit on the type of ascend. If it's a drifting ascend you don't want to shoot to close to the surface and risk having the boat not seeing your smb because you already drifted too far away from the wreck. (This by the way requires all the teams on the wreck to dive more or less the same profile and ascend more or less at the same time, otherwise it becomes a cluster ****)
Similar threads
