To tether or not to tether

[NothingClever]

I just received the Mako 2-handle camera tray from my lovely wife as a birthday present, and I have one question to begin.

First, congrats to your wife for finding a great tray at a great price. I’ve seen similar trays from other vendors for a lot more and wonder how they can charge so much for something so simple. The thing I like about the Mako tray is the forward mount position ensures your filters won’t suffer interference when pivoted away from the GoPro lens.

Anyways, I’m going to be a bit counter-culture and say ‘yes’, when I carry a GoPro in my tray I use two retractors. One is at the top of the left handle and the other at the top of the right handle. The other end of each retractor clips to its respective shoulder D-ring on my harness....left to left and right to right.

When I want to take a picture, the camera is squarely in position at my chest and is immediately graspable and deployable. When I’m done taking a shot, the camera snugs right back up to my chest and my hands go back to the Superman position. When I’m in horizontal trim (95% of the dive), the retractors keep the camera snug up against my chest (IOW, the retractors don’t pay out). The amount the tray pivots at the attachment point away from body is imperceptible so you needn’t worry about the danglies. If you penetrate something through a restricted opening, one hand will be sufficient to lay it perfectly flat against your chest.

There’s room at the top of the tray for one to two lights. I use a Qudos light on a cold shoe (so no strobe).

I dive with a half dozen guys and gals who have some crazy expensive rigs and they ALL have reminisced about such a simple system.

 

[doctormike]

yes, but nylon lines like that don’t just fail all of a sudden without notice unless it’s near a cutting device or something similar. If it is looking like it’s damaged or withering away, I would replace it. It isn’t put under a lot of weight stress as I usually hold the rig and I have floats but it is important to inspect the stitching and nylon.

Possibly not, but it's a weak link, and trivially easy to replace with something both more durable and more functional. Put a split ring or a quick link oval through the stitched webbing loop, and then you can put a bolt snap or whatever you prefer on that thing.

Also you wouldn't really be able to replace the nylon line if it started to fray anyway, you would just have to throw the whole thing away and get another one.

 

[Aviyes]

Or for the smaller gopro rigs just connect it with the split ring.

 

[ScubaMarc]

I mentioned before but I was not clear, i lost a nice light in the Atlantic when the joint in the red box fell apart.

 

[scubadada]

I have found 3 Go Pros in Boynton Beach. Two were on those head band mounts. The 3rd, with a handle, was either dropped or came loose during ascent as the camera was on and you could see it spiraling to the bottom. I would always hook my camera to me, I use a coiled lanyard

 

[CuzzA]

I mentioned before but I was not clear, i lost a nice light in the Atlantic when the joint in the red box fell apart.
View attachment 549383

Yeah, I've seen that failure before. No telling how it's secured under cover and the standards used by overseas manufacturers. Cheap pot metal? Glue? That's why I mentioned mono and a marine crimp. It is how we make spearfishing line rigs and stringer attachment rigs. I've pulled split rings apart as well and wouldn't trust them to a really expensive piece of gear. Instead I'd op for schackle bolt snap to make the connection. Put red locktite or nail polish on the shackle threads.

 

[doctormike]

I mentioned before but I was not clear, i lost a nice light in the Atlantic when the joint in the red box fell apart.

THAT's no good!

But the only time there is any strain on the system, it's not dependent on that. Whenever I'm traveling, doing gas switches, or anything else that requires two hands, the rig is clipped off, with two redundant bolt snaps, only one of which involves that tether. The other one is metal to metal (OK, DIR divers, you can put your hands down, I know!).

Otherwise, it's in my hand, so not dependent on the tether at all. I guess if I were to accidentally drop the rig (has never happened) and if that joint were to fail at that time, I could theoretically lose it. The tether is just a redundant backup in case I were to drop it accidentally or had an extreme emergency and suddenly needed two hands for something and there wasn't time to clip it off.

 

[ScubaMarc]

THAT's no good!

I do not remember exactly how it happened, but the clip that keeps the coil closed was in use. Somehow it snagged on the boat ladder and fell back down. All i had left was the clip and "bad" mount" end. It was many years ago, but looking at the new version, if I had it "closed" it should still be secure because the faulty mount is bypassed. Maybe i had different version.

This is what i do today.


As the og was talking about a go pro rig, I have a much larger photo rig. This is how I keep the rig secure on a dive. 1 diy (black) lanyard tied to the camera and to my bc that never gets removed during a dive. The other 2 are (orange) diy beach straps I used to keep the rig close to me when i am not taking pictures, or on a entry of a shore dive. I un-clip these during the dive

 

[CuzzA]

Those clips are "breakaway" clips. A good tug and they separate open. This is by design. I use them on my stringer in case something snatches it from me. The mono and crimps wont fail, but the clip will.

So if the coil connection is manufactured using poor practices and has corroded or rotted, you could be under the impression the coil is secure and if you snag on something that breakaway clip will give way and you'll lose the item.

I suppose it all just depends on the quality control of the manufacturer. Using simple 400 lbs mono and a crimp cost pennies and I control the quality. You could probably make your own coil from the mono if you wanted. Wrap it tight around a pipe, put in hot water, let cool and it will likely hold its form.

 

[doctormike]

Right but the coil is the key element. If you just use plain line of any sort, when it’s long enough to let you use the camera freely, it’s going to snag (line is evil).

if you really didn’t trust the coil connectors, you could fabricate your own somehow, I guess. But as I said, for a heavy rig, the coil should never be the only means of attachment of the diver to the camera when it is not being held.