AfterDark
Contributor
I recently got a request for details of the following incident in a
Buddy Breathing thread. I didn't want to hijack the thread so I'll
post it now. There are many lessons here.
The year was 1972 I had been certified for 4 years.
The location was Narragansett Bay at the site of the L8 a WWI sub
sunk by the Navy to test a torpedo in 1925. The L8 is in 120FSW.
This was to be the 1st dive to or below 100fsw for either of us.
The dive plan was to dive the sub for 15 min with a 5 min stop at 10'
because we wanted to be safe. US NAVY tables were used.
We carried all the air for the dive on our backs in the form of twin 72's maxed out at +10%. This was going to leave us with plenty of air to end the dive as planned.
However the plan was "modified" when we found a deck cleat unattached from the hull.
We were going to get it to the surface. We had a lot of trouble getting
the cleat onto the hull to rig it for the recovery. We then had trouble
rigging it. We were narced but hadn't realized yet. Time went by and with
the cleat still not ready our original 15 minutes were up. We decided
that another 5 min would do it. Being the stronger of the 2 of us I did
most of the bull work, as a result my air consumption skyrocketed.
After a few min we were done. I tried to recalculate my new decon time.
That's when I realized I was narced because I couldn't do it. We ascended
to 10' were we decided that 10 min was a good stop time. I thought that
as hard as I worked I should stay at least that long and my buddy wanted
to stay with me. After hanging for 1 min. my j-valve informed me it was
time to go. I signaled to my buddy that I was soon to be out of air and
we would need to BB to stay the full 10 min or take a chance on DCS.
Strictly by the tables I could have ascended after 2 min but as stated I
wanted to be as sure as possible that I'd have good memories of this dive.
So when my air again began to come hard, I gave the OOA sign and we began
buddy breathing. We had another slate debate and decided that tacking on
another couple of min would be a good idea as now we weren't breathing
normally and the gas purging might be compromised. We did our time and surfaced
only to lose the cleat. In my defense I wanted a tank at 10' but was
talked out of it as unnecessary as we had no real decon obligation as planned just
what we call today a safety stop. If we got low we could ascend and still
be within the tables. I didn't like it but, hey what can go wrong huh?
Buddy Breathing thread. I didn't want to hijack the thread so I'll
post it now. There are many lessons here.
The year was 1972 I had been certified for 4 years.
The location was Narragansett Bay at the site of the L8 a WWI sub
sunk by the Navy to test a torpedo in 1925. The L8 is in 120FSW.
This was to be the 1st dive to or below 100fsw for either of us.
The dive plan was to dive the sub for 15 min with a 5 min stop at 10'
because we wanted to be safe. US NAVY tables were used.
We carried all the air for the dive on our backs in the form of twin 72's maxed out at +10%. This was going to leave us with plenty of air to end the dive as planned.
However the plan was "modified" when we found a deck cleat unattached from the hull.
We were going to get it to the surface. We had a lot of trouble getting
the cleat onto the hull to rig it for the recovery. We then had trouble
rigging it. We were narced but hadn't realized yet. Time went by and with
the cleat still not ready our original 15 minutes were up. We decided
that another 5 min would do it. Being the stronger of the 2 of us I did
most of the bull work, as a result my air consumption skyrocketed.
After a few min we were done. I tried to recalculate my new decon time.
That's when I realized I was narced because I couldn't do it. We ascended
to 10' were we decided that 10 min was a good stop time. I thought that
as hard as I worked I should stay at least that long and my buddy wanted
to stay with me. After hanging for 1 min. my j-valve informed me it was
time to go. I signaled to my buddy that I was soon to be out of air and
we would need to BB to stay the full 10 min or take a chance on DCS.
Strictly by the tables I could have ascended after 2 min but as stated I
wanted to be as sure as possible that I'd have good memories of this dive.
So when my air again began to come hard, I gave the OOA sign and we began
buddy breathing. We had another slate debate and decided that tacking on
another couple of min would be a good idea as now we weren't breathing
normally and the gas purging might be compromised. We did our time and surfaced
only to lose the cleat. In my defense I wanted a tank at 10' but was
talked out of it as unnecessary as we had no real decon obligation as planned just
what we call today a safety stop. If we got low we could ascend and still
be within the tables. I didn't like it but, hey what can go wrong huh?
