Using Your Steel Tank on a SoCal Dive Boat, Any risk of rust?

[Esprise Me]

Buttons the size of hockey pucks!
I thought the next cross bar after 60’ was 120’?
60’ intervals between the cross bars?
I use a big pig sticker BFK for scallops.
I thought of making a small teak wedge that you could sneak up on a breathing scallop and stick the wedge into the “smile” and let it clamp down on it. Then you can take your time and carefully cut loose the flat side and do a nice clean job removing the button.
You need to have your buoyancy skills nailed down and pretty much second nature diving on the rigs!

The cross-beams are at slightly different depths on different rigs, but I mostly get scallops from the vertical beams anyway. On Eureka (the one that's by itself) everything is deeper-- the cross-beams, the scallops, the bottom. On the twins, I think the second set of cross-beams is at around 105'. I actually dropped my knife once while I was at 90', and luckily it landed perfectly on the beam just below so I was able to retrieve it.

 

[AfterDark]

Scallops! We harvest them in RI during the fall from salt ponds, Rhode Island Bay Scallops MMMMM!

OP as long as the compressor filters are changed when needed, there should be no internal rust issues. Compressed air is very dry due to the compression process.

 

[Esprise Me]

YES we were going to catch scallops for the first time too! My gf has a flat tip titanium knife but I'll probably go to PW to pick up the knife your talking about. My bouyancy is good, task load no problems. My gf, well we will find out. I'm probably going to have to hold onto her catch bag until we get hit the surface.

This was a very helpful thread! Happy diving yall

I'll offer one more unsolicited piece of advice and suggest you and your gf take turns gathering scallops. One person can hold the light (it gets a little dim down there) and the bag, and also monitor NDL, while the other wrestles with the scallops. Next dive, switch roles. Have fun! There's nothing like eating a fresh scallop right out of the water.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

The last time I was at the rigs (two years ago) they had been scraped clean by the oil company down to about 100 feet. There were no scallops in sight.

Here's a video from last March, and another from August. I don't know how deep the scallops were in the second video.

 

[napDiver]

Your cylinder requirements are based on gas consumption and depth. Assuming you know your RMV, it is easy to calculate the gas requirements for any dive. I have an average RMV of 0.36 cu ft/min. I can do essentially any no deco dive on an AL 80, except for shallow dives on high O2.

Our gas won't be an issue. Our NDL and cold will be the limiting factor. Hopefully we'll be back in our drysuits soon.

Scallops! We harvest them in RI during the fall from salt ponds, Rhode Island Bay Scallops MMMMM!

OP as long as the compressor filters are changed when needed, there should be no internal rust issues. Compressed air is very dry due to the compression process.

That's good to know. Learned something new today, I tend to be paranoid or overthink things when I don't know enough.

I'll offer one more unsolicited piece of advice and suggest you and your gf take turns gathering scallops. One person can hold the light (it gets a little dim down there) and the bag, and also monitor NDL, while the other wrestles with the scallops. Next dive, switch roles. Have fun! There's nothing like eating a fresh scallop right out of the water.

Lol thanks. I agree that's great advice, we already use a catcher-spotter system for hunting. Slash for catcher and circle to confirm spotter is ready for you to catch.

@MaxBottomtime The videos are really helpful. You guys weren't kidding, them scallops are HUGE. I'm hoping we can find some scallops!

Cheers I'll give yall an update after our trip!

 

[Bob DBF]

OP as long as the compressor filters are changed when needed, there should be no internal rust issues. Compressed air is very dry due to the compression proces

In addition. The reason the VIP was started was the poor moisture filters at use at that time, air quality improved over time but hung on a bit longer on boats because of the higher humidity at sea. I haven't seen moisture issues from fills on land or sea for decades.

I picked up an LP95 for my boat dives in SoCal, because it was a good deal, and the boat was only filling to 3000# at that time. It solved the short fill problem although it turned out to be my least favorite tank, I think it has to do with the diameter, but I'll live.

 

[Kensei]

Buttons the size of hockey pucks!
I thought the next cross bar after 60’ was 120’?
60’ intervals between the cross bars?
I use a big pig sticker BFK for scallops.
I thought of making a small teak wedge that you could sneak up on a breathing scallop and stick the wedge into the “smile” and let it clamp down on it. Then you can take your time and carefully cut loose the flat side and do a nice clean job removing the button.
You need to have your buoyancy skills nailed down and pretty much second nature diving on the rigs!

You're right Eric, the second crossbar is about 110-120. On the PacStar, they want you to consider the second crossbar as the "bottom" (i.e., don't go any deeper). As you can imagine, it's not a beginner dive. I've only done the oil rigs on the PacStar and they are extremely strict about following their rules when diving the oil rigs. Given the depth, it's a "hot drop" for divers so the boat isn't anchored. After jumping in, divers must stay on the surface and are absolutely not allowed to swim underwater from the boat to under the rigs and the same when returning to the boat. As you can imagine, they want to be able to visually see all divers near the boat and absolutely don't want anyone swimming under the boat.