What do you do when the anchor line breaks free?

[doctormike]

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

While you are correct in theory - every diver is ultimately responsible for every aspect of the dive - a logical conclusion from that is that you must only dive from your own boat (even then, you are trusting your topside crew).

If you dive on a charter, that is in essence an act of trust. I have been diving on this boat for years and I have seen firsthand their impeccable safety record and adherence to procedures, . For example, I don't check their emergency O2, their lifejackets, their fuel supply, the state of the captain and crew, the condition of the anchor line, etc... You may have issue with that as well, but that's what I and everyone that I know who dives in our area does. We do make some basic assumptions.

So I'm comfortable making the leap of faith that the crew of this particular boat did a good tie in. Of course, in retrospect, you can find fault with anything, but I do not feel that I now have to be in the habit of checking the tie in on every descent.

I make the assumption that the crew - far more experienced than I - didn't make a mistake that I would have picked up. In this particular case, I have already discussed the error on my part of not picking up on that other diver's communication, but had I gotten there 10 minutes earlier, before the disconnection became apparent, I doubt that I would have caught an error made by the crew member.

Don't get me wrong - checking the tie in is a fine idea. But I don't think that it rises to the level of something like analyzing your gas or checking your SPG in terms of glaring omissions if you don't do it.

 

[Celt]

While you are correct in theory - every diver is ultimately responsible for every aspect of the dive - a logical conclusion from that is that you must only dive from your own boat (even then, you are trusting your topside crew).

If you dive on a charter, that is in essence an act of trust. I have been diving on this boat for years and I have seen firsthand their impeccable safety record and adherence to procedures, . For example, I don't check their emergency O2, their lifejackets, their fuel supply, the state of the captain and crew, the condition of the anchor line, etc... You may have issue with that as well, but that's what I and everyone that I know who dives in our area does. We do make some basic assumptions.

So I'm comfortable making the leap of faith that the crew of this particular boat did a good tie in. Of course, in retrospect, you can find fault with anything, but I do not feel that I now have to be in the habit of checking the tie in on every descent.

I make the assumption that the crew - far more experienced than I - didn't make a mistake that I would have picked up. In this particular case, I have already discussed the error on my part of not picking up on that other diver's communication, but had I gotten there 10 minutes earlier, before the disconnection became apparent, I doubt that I would have caught an error made by the crew member.

Don't get me wrong - checking the tie in is a fine idea. But I don't think that it rises to the level of something like analyzing your gas or checking your SPG in terms of glaring omissions if you don't do it.

I was asked, “ do everyone on your dive’s check the mooring line,” as I mostly dive solo from my own boat I gave the best answer. Of course checking the mooring by everyone isn’t needed but I thought you were the first diver down and neglected to check the anchor when I made the original comment, apologies if that’s not the case.

 

[Hamish Morrison]

This is so far away from the way we dive here in the UK! I’ve never been on a boat that had diving crew. Occasionally crew to assist with deck operations, but certainly no-one to position & or tie the line in!

Generally, the skipper will shot the wreck & check its secure as the tide drops off. First, otherwise known as the sacrificial diver down confirms it’s in place by sending up small ‘pill’ & the rest of the divers pile in two at a time as fast as the boat can turn back in on the shot line. We often splash before the tide has completely stopped to maximize slack on the wreck.

The boat holds station close to the shot line for the duration of the dive & only pulls it once all divers have left bottom & deployed their DSMB’s, hopefully before the tide starts to run too hard again. Divers & boat drift together on the tide for what could be miles & are brought aboard when they complete their deco. Most decent boats have a diver lift these days thanks goodness, so getting back on the boat is almost as easy as getting off.

This works well as long as all divers agree on a rough dive time, so they don’t get too spread out on the surface. You could argue that a lazy shot would work just as well / better, but this would require a level of team diving that most divers don’t want to get involved with.

 

[mdwalter]

Now we had a problem. We had to ascend. We already had a good bit of a decompression obligation. And for every minute we spent at 115 feet, that number was going up. My buddy “shot a bag” – she sent a submersible marker buoy (SMB) up to the surface by attaching it to a line and filling it with gas, and then securing that line to the wreck. That gave us our own anchor line, and we could start our ascent on it.

This did three things – it helped us make a controlled ascent with deco stops, it kept us from drifting away from the wreck (and the dive boat), and it alerted the crew as to where we were. This was especially useful in my case, since I was on a rebreather and therefore, I wasn’t sending as many bubbles to the surface as the other open circuit divers. The boat crew watches for these “boils” as a sign of a diver below.

I had about 23 minutes of decompression, and it was not easy. Unlike a heavy anchor line tied between the dive boat and the wreck, this thin piece of cave line bobbed and swayed in the current, especially once three of us were doing decompression on it (another diver used our line to ascend). I finished my deco, but then I found that the top of the SMB was about 5 feet under the surface, due to heavy current pulling it sideways. I didn’t want to just leave it and head for the surface, because I didn’t know where the boat was, and once I did that I would have been at the mercy of the current. I could have shot a second SMB from that point, but instead I just swam the line in the direction of the current, straightening out the angle from the bottom until it was straight enough for the SMB to be above the water. Then I surfaced. The crew knew exactly where I was and threw me a line to get me back to the boat.

Something similar happened to me in Lake Erie a few weeks before your incident. I was on a boat with about 15 divers, none of whome I knew, but you can tell right away the tech guys, the experienced guys and the "other" guys. At the wreck there was a mooring ball, to which our boat tied up, as normal. Everyone got in one by one or two by two... I was on a rebreather, so I made a point to be one of the first in and intended to be one of the last out. I got to the wreck, swam all around, saw what there was to see, watched the "other" guys come and go, then figured it was time to head back up. There were still a couple tech guys in doubles who had come down near the end of the lineup, who I figured would be about ready to head up soon, so I figured I'd head out now to avoid congestion at the 20' stop.

So I go up the line, as normal, and when I get to about 40' I see a big cluster of the "other" guys on the line about 10' above me. I thought this was odd, since they had left the wreck quite some time ago, should not have any deco, and 30' is mghty deep for their "safety stop" But, I figured I'd just wait for the congestion to clear before moving up. After a few minutes I got impatient and decided to just ascent up past the cluster at 30' and do a stop above them at 20' or so. Once I got to where they were, I saw what the holdup was. There was no longer a line above 30' and these guys were just there with confused looks on their faces. It was pretty clear the line had broken at this point and was being held up by this group of over-buoyant divers clinging to the end of it. I signaled them to just wait here (fist) and that I would shoot a bag and tie it to the line. My mistake was also signalling that we would then ascend this bag line one or two at a time. All most of them saw was me signaling the ascent, so most of them just let go of the line and popped to the surface and started drifting. Luckily the boat had realized it had broken free and started scurrying around to pick up the drifters. Once the rest of the "other" guys realized this, they each did the same, but with some better buoyancy control and reasonable ascent. I think a couple shot their own SMB before casting off into the current, but none tied off to the line.

So now I'm alone at the top of the broken mooring line, so I decided to swim it into the current to see how shallow I could get it (maybe to the surface?). Nope, not happening. By this time, here come the guys in the doubles. We have a quick hand signal discussion and one guy shoots an SMB and we tie it to the line. I'm on the RB, so I have all day. I signal the 2 of them to go up and I'll wait here and mind the knot until they get picked up so we're not all hanging on the thin string at once. Meanwhile, here comes one of the divers who was still on the boat when the mooring line broke. He's got a new piece of rope, which he intends to run down to the wreck, so I signal him that here's the old line he can follow right down, and he takes the end of the new rope and heads down while I stay there and feed the rest of the new rope along to keep it tidy and untangled. Once he had the new line tied into the wreck, the boat took in the slack and I untied the SMB from the old line and let it drop. I then finished my ascent on the new line while reeling in the SMB and returned it to its owner on the boat. The rest of the divers who had still been on the boat when the mooring broke then went down the new line for their first dive while we did our surface interval. They also coiled up the old mooring line at the bottom. Eventually everyone did a second dive on the new mooring line and someone brought the remnants of the old one back up at the end of the second dive.

This all went surprisingly smoothly and we left nothing behind - not a spool, not a string, not even the old broken rope - nothing. And more importantly, nobody left behind - no one. In hindsight, some helpful things were those of us who remained calm after some others made the bad choice to set themselves adrift and just hung out until that got sorted out up top. Those on the boat made a plan to fix the problem from their end, after collecting the drifters. And everyone worked together to replace the mooring line in such a way that everybody still got their 2 dives in and we even cleaned up the mess before leaving the site.

 

[johndiver999]

Why was setting themselves adrift - letting go of the broken mooring a mistake? The boat should realize quickly they are adrift and should be looking for smbs to pop up. Then, they get the current velocity and just wait downstream for everyone to show? Seems better than hanging from a rope getting sucked down by the current. Of course if the current is negligible, then there should be no problem really.

 

[doctormike]

Why was setting themselves adrift - letting go of the broken mooring a mistake? The boat should realize quickly they are adrift and should be looking for smbs to pop up. Then, they get the current velocity and just wait downstream for everyone to show? Seems better than hanging from a rope getting sucked down by the current. Of course if the current is negligible, then there should be no problem really.

I would think - from the captains point of view, and assuming that you aren't doing a drift dive - that the best place for all of your divers to be would be on the surface, tethered to the wreck. If there's a lot of current, wouldn't it be better not to have to go chase divers?

 

[johndiver999]

I would think - from the captains point of view, and assuming that you aren't doing a drift dive - that the best place for all of your divers to be would be on the surface, tethered to the wreck. If there's a lot of current, wouldn't it be better not to have to go chase divers?

The boat broke free. As long as people send up smb's as soon as they get to 30 ft or so and see the end of the line, then they should be easy to track. The divers should presumably be popping up in one location and then forming a more or less straight line, extending down current. Unless the weather is really bad, the captain should be able to watch and wait and pick people up as they drift in a linear manner just below the surface.

The problem with being tethered to the wreck, is that any appreciable current will cause the divers to get sucked down due to the current. The more monkeys on the line, the worse it would get. This will be stressful for the divers, causing them to inflate BC's and try to swim etc. Far easier to relax, send up smb and and hang, it is not like the captain isn't going to notice that he broke free of the anchor/mooring, right away.

 

[rjack321]

I would think - from the captains point of view, and assuming that you aren't doing a drift dive - that the best place for all of your divers to be would be on the surface, tethered to the wreck. If there's a lot of current, wouldn't it be better not to have to go chase divers?

If there's current and you try to hang on a line with nothing above (no buoy, no boat) you will struggle to ascend. Unless you are dangerously buoyant the current will extend the line laterally. If you are dangerously buoyant and let go of the line you'll end up on the surface in an uncontrolled ascent. The only way to safety go up is to: 1) stay with the sorta flapping line using a scooter as long as you can and pop a bag as close to the surface as possible or 2) if no scooter, pop a bag now and drift.

 

[johndiver999]

If there's current and you try to hang on a line with nothing above (no buoy, no boat) you will struggle to ascend. Unless you are dangerously buoyant the current will extend the line laterally. If you are dangerously buoyant and let go of the line you'll end up on the surface in an uncontrolled ascent. The only way to safety go up is to: 1) stay with the sorta flapping line using a scooter as long as you can and pop a bag as close to the surface as possible or 2) if no scooter, pop a bag now and drift.

And even scootering into the current under a bag, might not be preferable if other divers don't have scooters and have to drift. Scootering into the current might just separate the group more, but it depends on current and how long the hang is, of course.

 

[doctormike]

Dunno. At least when this happened to me (in the OP), I let out enough line so there was enough scope, and sat on the bag on the surface, making myself buoyant after finishing deco.