What do you do when the anchor line breaks free?

[b1gcountry]

I'm glad you figured it out...

You NYC divers sure carry a lot of gear for warm water diving

 

[TrimixToo]

I've been on a dive where the tie-in parted, once. The current was light, but there. I did what your partner did--put up a bag from the wreck and came up on it. I got picked up almost instantly. Most of the other divers just surfaced, making life interesting for the captain. (This dive op is no longer in business but he handled it very well and nobody spent much time floating around waiting.)

I have huge respect for Jim and his crew. They make it look easy, but it's not. The GB is a great boat and when I stop traveling so darn much I will be back on it. (It's fun to tease Jim sometimes, but he's a solid captain. I used to bring him beer once in a while--for consumption on the dock afterward.)

I wouldn't loop my line. You need twice as much that way. In a strong current it takes a surprising amount of line to make sure the bag stays on the surface, and I won't claim to have any magic formula. But if the bag is underwater I can use my remaining line to get my SMB up farther. Someone can make a dive to clean it up later.

 

[mje113]

@Celt I was on the same boat today and this is what the First Class anchor line looks like:

 

[doctormike]

I was on the same boat today and this is what the First Class anchor line looks like:

As we dad's like to say - usually after strapping something on the roof of a car - "THAT'S not going anywhere!"

 

[OTF]

Great thread, thanks for the detailed writeup @doctormike.

 

[VikingDives]

@doctormike Great write up! This kind of dive is well out of my wheelhouse and this is what I come here for - to learn something about someplace I haven't been. I could visualize what you were doing and how you did it. Thanks for this post!

 

[Alekseolsen]

No, that's a separate issue. It wasn't pulled under by people on the line, it was from the current. We weren't using the line to compensate for buoyancy, we had to be neutral to hold our stops, which is what we were doing.

I guess there is probably some sort of physics and geometry equation to figure this out, but I would think that for the SMB to be at 40 feet it would either have been launched incorrectly (i.e. tied off before it hit the surface), or you were diving in the Niagra falls basin!.

So if you launch the SMB correctly, it will hit the surface. Then when you tie it off, it can get pulled down in current, but not 40 feet. But I guess if that happened, you would need to launch your second SMB from there!

No idea about currents in New York area, but I quite recently "shot" a DSMB (quite large one, 180cm) despite the buoy beeing fully inflated, my line went almost completely horizontal, and it took my VRX at full speed to keep myself (my body was out if the current) at standstill due to the pull from the buouy.

 

[Celt]

@Celt I was on the same boat today and this is what the First Class anchor line looks like:

Nice job, very similar to the shot system. I believe she’s over 5,000 ton. On similar wrecks in those depths you can be pretty happy the shot will hit the wreck. In smaller or deeper we use a heavy grapple to send it down fast. The chain is fixed to the back of the grapple and then taken back to the eye on the shaft and fixed with a breakaway. First diver down will tie in it in, and last up will untie it. When the divers are back the boat can snap the breakaway and clear the grapple.

 

[DanBMW]

No offence but that was a major mistake not checking someone else’s tie in.

Does everyone on your dives check the mooring line?

 

[Celt]

Does everyone on your dives check the mooring line?

Just the ones that don’t want to be left down the wreck with the mooring parted.