What do folks make of this one...

[Griffo]

So I'm certainly no wreck diving expert, but to me it seems that if you are reliant on the temporary anchor line for your ascent, then each diver should carry a line long enough to tie to the wreck and ascend on. That way, if you lose the anchor line, blow a bag from the bottom, tie to the wreck, and ascend on that.

 

[Tortuga68]

1. It underscores everything I say about tech: Because the margins-of-error grow thinner & thinner as you push the envelope (deeper, longer, etc.),tech diving requires MORE skill and awareness, not less, than traditional recreational diving

Well duh... Is anyone really taking the counterpoint on that?

 

[DeepSeaDan]

A few reasons:

1. A bottom-mounted mooring isn't necessary. If you're running a line to the bottom, just tie into the wreck.

"Tie into the wreck" eventually "wrecks the wreck," if it is made of wood. Steel wrecks are mostly immune, particularly if you tie into a reinforced area, though some wreck diving "purists" would never consider fastening a mooring line to any wreck.

DSD

---------- Post added May 28th, 2013 at 06:41 AM ----------

A few reasons:

When a diver boat is anchored there and flying the Alpha flag, tankers/etc will navigate around.

As I stated previously, a dive boat Captain best be prepared to slip his mooring line & get out of the way in case oncoming traffic hasn't noticed him. A much safer system is the temporary buoyed line with a float attached.

DSD

 

[rhwestfall]

Yes. I was wondering why they don't do that? We certainly have permanent moorings on wrecks here in Ontario. On the U.S. side of the St. Lawrence River, you have the America permanently moored in a very busy shipping channel, and the wreck is treated as an overhead dive due to the freighters and other heavy boat traffic. It works.

Couple points for clarity in regard to this:

1. the permanent mooring for the America was not actually put there for the purpose of divers. It was the anchoring for its work operations the America was doing (drill barge doing explosive demolition work to better define the shipping channel), and remained with the ship's sinking. The chain you follow....

2. The mooring is outside the channel (very slightly, but still outside it). The "mooring block" is very near the east side channel marker and is on a shoal. As we know, if you are outside the channel, you may become the next diving destination... the St. Lawrence in not forgiving for shipping errors. The America was removing the side of the shoal that you anchor over.

 

[Kharon]

... Our 3-foot (1M) safety sausages are only really useful with little or no swell. 6-foot sausages would have been better here (but would still not have been visible to our dive boat)...

Why I carry a flare gun & 3-4 flares in situations like this. Fits in my BC pocket real nice and gives me a lot of comfort. Day or night, no matter how high the swells it gives a loud pop and shoots 250' or so up and burns all the way down. I also have a Dive Alert for sound. Very loud.

 

[macado]

A few things if I had been in the same situation which have already been mentioned.

I would have left the anchor fouled in the wreck UNTIL I was ready to ascend THEN I would have moved it into the sand.

Usually around here, the last diver or team of divers will move the anchor off the wreck before ascending. I'd even give myself extra time to unfoul anchor. If my planned BT was 35 minutes then I'd maybe cut it down to 30 and and give myself a 5 minute window to free anchor.

I always carry a 6ft SMB. I've often wondered if I need something larger. In my opinion, divers doing any decompression should NOT be carrying a 3ft SMB.

I also would have not skipped any deco obligatons as long as I had enough gas and I knew my SMB was inflated but I've honestly never been put in a situation where I had to do free floating deco and I didnt know where the boat was.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Well duh... Is anyone really taking the counterpoint on that?

Certainly not in this thread. But tech diving is pitched, certainly by some places in SoCal but also in other parts of the country with which I'm familiar, NOT as an advanced area of diving with a higher risk/reward ratio and a smaller margin-of-error that might be a consideration for highly skilled and proficient divers. It's frequently pitched as the next logical step in your dive training which, when mastered, will help you become a better diver. (And oh by the way, there's about an extra $10,000 in equipment you need to buy.) The proverbial cart is definitely being put before the horse.

The sales pitch is essentially that because some highly skilled divers go tech, when you get into tech diving, you will become highly skilled.

- Ken

---------- Post added May 28th, 2013 at 11:54 AM ----------

It's frequently pitched as the next logical step in your dive training which, when mastered, will help you become a better diver. (And oh by the way, there's about an extra $10,000 in equipment you need to buy.)

After I posted this, I ran across this in my Facebook feed. Sort of underscores exactly the point I was making: Recreational Sidemount Dive - YouTube .

- Ken

 

[MalibuJerry]

Unlike Ken, I am a techie and have been (no longer) involved in tech instruction. Ken is absolutely right. I have had many a good recreational diver come to me and say they wanted to become a tech diver for the sole reason that they thought it was the "next step" in diving. They are quite surprised when I have tried to dissuade them of that notion and I'm sure they found someone to give them a tri-mix card so they could be one step up.

The normal procedure for a dive like this would be to drop a shot line next to the wreck and live boat it. If they had done that, the boat captain would have had to keep his eye on the shot line since he would not have been under the illusion that he was fixed to the bottom. Second, the first team (if they were actually diving as teams) never moves the anchor (shot line or boat) out into the sand, it is always the last team that does it as they leave the wreck. We don't use Jersey Uplines in California as was suggested, because with proper training and experience you don't need them here.
Jerry

 

[boulderjohn]

I think there is a logical next step that is related to tech but is not actually tech.

I am currently working on an article on it, and I am toying with a title like "Scuba's Middle Path." It is recreational diving with some of what has been learned through tech diving introduced. Some people call it TecReational, and Peter Guy of ScubaBoard created a PADI Distinctive Specialty for it. It teaches advanced kicking techniques and advanced buoyancy and trim. It goes more deeply into some academic concepts like dive panning and gas management. It teaches a little more about deco theory. Although it is important to be able to rim gear properly, it can be done with any standard set of recreational gear, so there is no requirement for a $10,000 gear purchase.

 

[yardpro]

A few reasons:

1. A bottom-mounted mooring isn't necessary. If you're running a line to the bottom, just tie into the wreck.

2. Around here, moorings are surface floating moorings and it's not practical given the shipping lane issues. When a diver boat is anchored there and flying the Alpha flag, tankers/etc will navigate around. But with a permanent mooring there on the surface, a tanker will eventually hit it. Safety and liability issues arise, plus you'd need Coast Commission and USCG approval for it.

3. Assuming it would be a surface mooring, it then becomes a beacon for every yahoo around to dive what is already a dangerous wreck. Not need to invite more trouble than already exists.



- Ken

with all due respect i don't think you understand what they are talking about.

the submerged bloc is basically a very large concrete block with one or more metal eyes sticking out to hook on to.

The top of the block would be n higher than the wreck, usually only a few feet off the bottom..

We use them here, so do virtually every boat i have been on outside the us... grand cayman, grand turk, bahamas, etc...


they pull the boat up to the site and a diver goes down and hooks in... when the dive is over, and everyone is up the diver unhooks and comes up...easy squeezy...

these are sometimes screws, sometimes blocks, and do MUCH less damage than an anchor to the bottom.