Your thoughts on dual bladder wing

[The Chairman]

Again, Pete, a dual bladder isn't going to stop you from lawn darting to the bottom if the elbow pops off when you jump in the water.

Sure it will. It doesn't take much to plug it in or to manually inflate. Of course, if you don't practice it, then you won't know how to do it.

 

[PfcAJ]

Sure it will. It doesn't take much to plug it in or to manually inflate. Of course, if you don't practice it, then you won't know how to do it.

yes yes, plug It in when you jump in lol

orally inflate? ok man, lemme know how one breath at a time works when you're plummeting.

 

[Centrals]

I am an advocate for dual bladder wings.

You are not alone on this. Most of my buddies are also diving with twin bladders as well.

 

[stuartv]

I even punctured the BWOD on a sharp projectile in a real wreck. Tore me up too, so there's no way a dry suit would have survived that wreck.

How do get a puncture through your wing and into yourself and not puncture the second bladder also?

 

[The Chairman]

@stuartv Only one puncture in the wing... I endured several. It was one of those bad ideas. Once I was in the hold, I should have turned right around, but I picked my way through leaving parts of myself behind. Wasn't even a real wreck but an artificial reef. I can't remember the name, but it was in the Jupiter/West Palm area.

 

[RainPilot]

Pete, have you considered carrying your weighting in the form of body armour ?

 

[Peter69_56]

Balanced Rig Check:

With air drained from drysuit and wing, hold a 10 ft stop for 2 min with 500 psi in your tanks.

With air drained from drysuit and wing, swim full tanks up from a depth of at least 30 ft to the surface.

Most divers wearing a 7mm and steel doubles wouldn't be carrying any additional weight.

So you are suggesting that when I have twin 12.2 steels and three 5.7 aluminium deco tanks and jump in I should be able to swim up from 10m to the surface with no air in drysuit or wing? Now I havent tried it but feel that if I did that I would be so light during deco I would never hold a stop from about 15m as I would have to reduce weight to do that. If I dumped my weight belt I could easily. Now I run about 18 lb with dry suit and already know if I try and drop any weight I cannot hold deco?

I much prefer wetsuits as I can run with less weight. At truk I have no weight with twin 85 alum and 3 mm wetsuit, but still run twin bladder and an SMB. I look at the risk of twin bladder issues vs the chance of lost buoyancy and to date lost buoyancy is the higher risk.

I use twin bladders and managed on one day to have both bladders with small holes in both sides of them, along with my SMB having small holes. And no, the holes didnt show during the rig checks on decent, as I had little air in my wing at 5m (with the second deflated of course). It wasnt until I got to 50m that the issue showed up with a constant loss of air from my wing, and the second bladder then showing the same issue when used. The SMB showing failure when I did my deco stop with wing losing air. Who checks their SMB for leaks before each dive?

During my tech training we were taught to use an SMB for additional buoyancy and how to control lift with it. If practised, its doable in an emergency, but not something I would chose to do.

 

[The Chairman]

Pete, have you considered carrying your weighting in the form of body armour ?

You know, going side mount only makes this tendency worse. Anytime I think, "You know, I bet it's doable..." there's a chance i'm going to lose a bit of skin. I always appreciate a good puzzle.

 

[_Ralph]

So you are suggesting that when I have twin 12.2 steels and three 5.7 aluminium deco tanks and jump in I should be able to swim up from 10m to the surface with no air in drysuit or wing? Now I havent tried it but feel that if I did that I would be so light during deco I would never hold a stop from about 15m as I would have to reduce weight to do that. If I dumped my weight belt I could easily. Now I run about 18 lb with dry suit and already know if I try and drop any weight I cannot hold deco?

What costs more ... 3 bottles & regs or your life?

Going in with that many tanks, you are going to be stupid heavy, add in heavy batteries from lights of old (NiMh or LA) and a weight belt ....

Drop them. You just jumped in, you shouldn't have a need for those tanks, or light, or .... And hopefully you're somewhere that you may be able to recover them (and the captain is quick enough to put a reliable mark on the GPS)

If you can't swim it up, ditch the weight.

A bit of an amendment/addition of a 'Balanced Rig'. I look at it as the core rig ... The part that is strapped onto you. i.e. backgas, fins and exposure protection. The rest is just accessories.... but do keep note of extra bottles as they empty ... need to cover that as well....

In your example you provided above, you have 3 tanks that are going to be ~4lbs negative each ... thats 12lbs you can ditch fairly quickly (nothing to deploy/stow, unless your breathing one as a travel gas). Add in a NiMh battery can light, another few pounds.

If you change that to nearing the end of your dive, you'll need those tanks for presumably deco. While you probably shouldn't get rid of them completely, you can pass your teammates your heavier things and swap for lighter things. IE, maybe someone has an empty stage/deco bottle. Thats some buoyancy. I'd take it. Maybe they could carry your heavy stage/deco bottles that you don't need at that moment? I'd do that too. Maybe once your under more control, but still a little heavy, you could go to a backup light, and pass your canister light off to another teammate.


I once experienced a similar conundrum on a shore dive. New to me suit with turbo soles and very sharp, jagged boulders with double 130's. Man that sucked. Went down twice... hard. (I was used to rock boots .....)

The second time, I hit a patch of barnacles. Tore part of my dry glove (wrist seal still intact). Did the dive. About 10 minutes in on the wall I realized I was adding gas every few minutes to stay where I wanted too. Didn't think too much about it, it's a site with current, could be some up/down currents ...

I signaled my teammate, asked him to watch for bubbles. Rolled left, nothing, rolled right ..... wing is empty. I later found out I put two 2" slices right through the left side of the wing at the bottom. Didn't notice it on the surface as the gas was above the holes.

Since the dive was current dependent (jump in just before slack, get a ride out along the wall, tide changes, get a ride back to our entry point), I spent the rest of the dive sideways...

The holes were through & through. Double bladder wouldn't have done anything for me crashing down onto those barnacles.




_R

 

[Peter69_56]

What costs more ... 3 bottles & regs or your life?

Going in with that many tanks, you are going to be stupid heavy, add in heavy batteries from lights of old (NiMh or LA) and a weight belt ....

Drop them. You just jumped in, you shouldn't have a need for those tanks, or light, or .... And hopefully you're somewhere that you may be able to recover them (and the captain is quick enough to put a reliable mark on the GPS)

If you can't swim it up, ditch the weight.

A bit of an amendment/addition of a 'Balanced Rig'. I look at it as the core rig ... The part that is strapped onto you. i.e. backgas, fins and exposure protection. The rest is just accessories.... but do keep note of extra bottles as they empty ... need to cover that as well....

In your example you provided above, you have 3 tanks that are going to be ~4lbs negative each ... thats 12lbs you can ditch fairly quickly (nothing to deploy/stow, unless your breathing one as a travel gas). Add in a NiMh battery can light, another few pounds.

If you change that to nearing the end of your dive, you'll need those tanks for presumably deco. While you probably shouldn't get rid of them completely, you can pass your teammates your heavier things and swap for lighter things. IE, maybe someone has an empty stage/deco bottle. Thats some buoyancy. I'd take it. Maybe they could carry your heavy stage/deco bottles that you don't need at that moment? I'd do that too. Maybe once your under more control, but still a little heavy, you could go to a backup light, and pass your canister light off to another teammate.


I once experienced a similar conundrum on a shore dive. New to me suit with turbo soles and very sharp, jagged boulders with double 130's. Man that sucked. Went down twice... hard. (I was used to rock boots .....)

The second time, I hit a patch of barnacles. Tore part of my dry glove (wrist seal still intact). Did the dive. About 10 minutes in on the wall I realized I was adding gas every few minutes to stay where I wanted too. Didn't think too much about it, it's a site with current, could be some up/down currents ...

I signaled my teammate, asked him to watch for bubbles. Rolled left, nothing, rolled right ..... wing is empty. I later found out I put two 2" slices right through the left side of the wing at the bottom. Didn't notice it on the surface as the gas was above the holes.

Since the dive was current dependent (jump in just before slack, get a ride out along the wall, tide changes, get a ride back to our entry point), I spent the rest of the dive sideways...

The holes were through & through. Double bladder wouldn't have done anything for me crashing down onto those barnacles. _R

I dont have a problem dropping gear especially if its me or the gear. I agree I am heavy with that much gear, but it is somewhat necessary for the depth. I am just trying to get my head around those who make statements about being able to swim up. I guess my issue is they dont make it clear as to how they are set up. I agree, the gear is accessories, weight belt is as well, and in dropping all that gear I could swim up easily and wouldnt have to hold deco stops. At the end of the bottom time however its another story, all that gear is now necessary, even the weight belt for ensuring deco stops. So I guess my point is before a grandiose statement like you should be able to swim to the surface is made, it should be clear to everyone the total picture, ie, drop all sling tanks, weight belt and "you should be able to swim to the surface", which I believe can do with no air in wing or dry suit.

And I do appreciate your comment "Core Rig" which makes the explanation make more sense.