DIR- GUE Spool to SMB attachment

[Wibble]

Skippers I’ve spoken to really rate a girth over length as the SMB lays on the surface (unless you hang underneath — no, me neither). With girth comes volume which means using your drysuit inflator and keeping it connected for as long as possible before letting go.

Those skinny SMBs are probably aimed at the oral inflation crowd. Fine unless your lips are freezing cold….

Most of the dive boats I use want the bags sent up from the wreck and one bag per diver so they can count the bags. Have heard some pretty interesting shouting from skippers at "teams" who don’t follow that rule.

 

[NothingClever]

It seems to me the common practice (or at least it’s what I do) on the US side of the mid Atlantic is to deploy as soon as one is coming off the wreck. This provides earliest notification to the captain that I’m ending my dive and starting my schedule. I think shooting from the first stop can put unhelpful distance between the diver and the boat if the current is brisk.

 

[vinsanity]

Most of the dive boats I use want the bags sent up from the wreck and one bag per diver so they can count the bags. Have heard some pretty interesting shouting from skippers at "teams" who don’t follow that rule.

Doesn't that pose a high risk of the bag lines getting tangled if there is any current?

 

[flymolo]

Skippers I’ve spoken to really rate a girth over length as the SMB lays on the surface (unless you hang underneath — no, me neither). With girth comes volume which means using your drysuit inflator and keeping it connected for as long as possible before letting go.

Those skinny SMBs are probably aimed at the oral inflation crowd. Fine unless your lips are freezing cold….

Most of the dive boats I use want the bags sent up from the wreck and one bag per diver so they can count the bags. Have heard some pretty interesting shouting from skippers at "teams" who don’t follow that rule.

Yeah, a lot of it really depends on what the captain wants. If they say 1 smb per person, shot from the top of the wreck, so be it.

 

[NothingClever]

Time to spread out. Easy for me to say with the generally good visibility in Florida’s Atlantic waters but not much irritates me like dueling kites in the deco park when it’s avoidable. All that ocean and somebody wants to crowd in. Sheesh.

 

[beester]

Skippers I’ve spoken to really rate a girth over length as the SMB lays on the surface (unless you hang underneath — no, me neither). With girth comes volume which means using your drysuit inflator and keeping it connected for as long as possible before letting go.

Those skinny SMBs are probably aimed at the oral inflation crowd. Fine unless your lips are freezing cold….

Most of the dive boats I use want the bags sent up from the wreck and one bag per diver so they can count the bags. Have heard some pretty interesting shouting from skippers at "teams" who don’t follow that rule.

Well my experience differs, but you are right the skipper is always right!

- We don't do winter dives on the north sea. Not because it's cold, but because the day is too short, meaning you really depend on a midday slack tide to dive, and are not able to do 2 dives because by the time slack tide comes around again it's dark. Try using an SMB in the dark ;-)
- We typically shoot smb's from 21m, typical dives are T1 dives (30min deco), simply because of tides. You don't want to be drifting for longer. This means that from wreck to 21 m takes not a very long time so not much difference with shooting it from the wreck (where you might have entanglement hazards).
- We shoot 1 smb per team, the 2nd one is shot if there is any issue to warn the skipper.
- If the SMB is not too wide you can slightly pull on it and it will keep upright, increasing visibility.
- That being said, every team has flares and a PBL with them. If you only rely on SMBs you might be in trouble one day.

But every group or every skipper has his own process depending on diving locality and experience. However this works for us and we (well not me anymore I'm in Italy now) have done quite some dives on North Sea wrecks. Including diving 1 particular wreck for more than 120hours in 1 year to document it (video, 3D, photography, history, etc), and then repeating this the next year on another wreck. Both historically significant and protected, both close to the shipping lane. That means we were out on the North Sea diving almost 30 seamiles out almost every weekend, up to sea state 5.

Meaning it could be like this...

Or like this...

 

[Rich1280]

Skippers I’ve spoken to really rate a girth over length as the SMB lays on the surface (unless you hang underneath — no, me neither). With girth comes volume which means using your drysuit inflator and keeping it connected for as long as possible before letting go.

Those skinny SMBs are probably aimed at the oral inflation crowd. Fine unless your lips are freezing cold….

Most of the dive boats I use want the bags sent up from the wreck and one bag per diver so they can count the bags. Have heard some pretty interesting shouting from skippers at "teams" who don’t follow that rule.

I think that's a Dover thing WIbble. I dive out of Portland a fair amount, and Eyemouth / St Abbs, and we put them up as one per team, both for the GUE divers I dive with as well as my BSAC club. Shallow dives under 30m tend to get a bag off as we leave the wreck, say 26-27m, and deeper deco dives tend to get the bag at 21m. Skippers seem fine with this, unless its a lazy shot type dive.

Rich

 

[TonRin]

In a lot of countries is seems to be mandatory to carry a DSMB with you to dive (not a rule here in the Solomon's, but I carry one anyway) but I cannot believe that this process about how to spool them and connect them is not apart of at the very least the Advanced Open Water course. Knowing this stuff could be life saving and I have learnt so much from reading what you guys say about it and how you show us ways to do it. Sure there's different methods, but I for one as a quite new diver really don't want to be wasting precious time underwater fiddling with this thing if I need to get it up and away quickly due to an issue.

Cheers all for the great instruction and tips.
Tony

 

[Wibble]

One thing that’s changed my techniques on an SMB more than any other is the move to a rebreather. For a start there’s not the gas availability as with open circuit, but mostly it’s about making things easier as the ascent is a very busy time running the box.

The large reel is very easy to use; the CO2 SMB just works and is extremely fast to deploy. No faff makes me happy. The weight of the reel can be useful for buoyancy control without touching the BCD dump/inflate — dozing off at deco. Having said that, most of the time is spent away from it and leaving the reel to bounce around a couple of metres (6') away.

 

[Wibble]

Well my experience differs, but you are right the skipper is always right!

- We don't do winter dives on the north sea. Not because it's cold, but because the day is too short, meaning you really depend on a midday slack tide to dive, and are not able to do 2 dives because by the time slack tide comes around again it's dark. Try using an SMB in the dark ;-)
- We typically shoot smb's from 21m, typical dives are T1 dives (30min deco), simply because of tides. You don't want to be drifting for longer. This means that from wreck to 21 m takes not a very long time so not much difference with shooting it from the wreck (where you might have entanglement hazards).
- We shoot 1 smb per team, the 2nd one is shot if there is any issue to warn the skipper.
- If the SMB is not too wide you can slightly pull on it and it will keep upright, increasing visibility.
- That being said, every team has flares and a PBL with them. If you only rely on SMBs you might be in trouble one day.

But every group or every skipper has his own process depending on diving locality and experience. However this works for us and we (well not me anymore I'm in Italy now) have done quite some dives on North Sea wrecks. Including diving 1 particular wreck for more than 120hours in 1 year to document it (video, 3D, photography, history, etc), and then repeating this the next year on another wreck. Both historically significant and protected, both close to the shipping lane. That means we were out on the North Sea diving almost 30 seamiles out almost every weekend, up to sea state 5.

Meaning it could be like this...

View attachment 683355

Or like this...

View attachment 683357

Eeek, no dive lift!