Dropped Scallops and Rapid Surfacing Ascent

[GLOC]

Me this time!

I was on a dive boat in Plymouth when the skipper bantered me about bringing some scallops back and being the accomodation guy, I said yes but I would need a bag.

Over we dropped into the drift of Drake's passage which was running at a couple of knots. I had the SMB up and was holding the bag with my buddy doing the scalloping. The routine was that I would turn into current and hold position while he picked up the scallops and deposited them in the net bag. I could only hold position for a little while as the SMB was dragging me up, so as I rose a couple of metres, I would turn and drift down with the current.

After about 30 mins the bag was getting pretty heavy and I was having to add more air to my wing which was causing some problems as I had the bag of scallops in my left hand, the spool and SMB in my right.

It then got to the stage where I was going up too quickly and because both hands were full, I couldn't dump the rapidly expanding air fast enough, so I (foolishly) decided to dump the scallops as I didn't want to lose the SMB. I was now very bouyant and hit the surface and lost my buddy. I had the presence of mind to go back down and then do a slow ascent to the surface. During the descent I tried to find my buddy again, but he was gone but he had seen me make my ascent with a regulator in my mouth so wasn't too concerned about my safety.

After the slow ascent I signalled for the boat to come over and they picked me up but there was no sign of my buddies SMB and was starting to get concerned but after a few minutes on the boat it surfaced and we picked him up complete with scallops.

When the bag was back on the boat we reckon it was in the region of 10kg hence the fast ascent when I dropped it.

In addition, my buddy had had a freeflow of his drysuit inflation hose when he tried to inflate the CC SMB so he had to shutdown the left post!!

Lessons learned:

If scalloping or lifting anything more than 3-4 kg make sure that the bag is not linked to you, but rather another bouyant tool such as a lift bag or SMB. Ooooh just like the PADI manual says

If you are going to drop anything, don't worry about the cost, it might be that dropping the expensive thing saves your life.

Don't get yourself in the situation to start with by thinking through what you are going to do on the dive.

If using a DS inflate for a CC SMB, try it out first in the safe environment, not in a 2-3 kt current on a drift dive!

Always have at least one hand free to dump air from the wing.

[milldog]

you could still get 10 KG and give me 4 after the dive

congrats on the MOD job

[Garf]

I have a similar one to this. Someone once pointed to an abandoned weightbelt with maybe 15kg on it lying on the seabed as we drifted over on a fairly rapid drift dive.

For some reason I decided lifting the belt was a good idea. I picked it up and injected massive amounts of air into my wing to compensate. After fighting with it on the drift for a minute or two I decided "f**k this" and let go of it. I was at 15 metres one second and 5 the next. I managed to stop it before I hit the surface, but it was close.

Not one of my brighter moments.

[applepie]

[quote=Garf]I have a similar one to this. Someone once pointed to an abandoned weightbelt with maybe 15kg on it lying on the seabed as we drifted over on a fairly rapid drift dive.

QUOTE]

had similar, buddy collected a wt belt he found, when he wanted to sort something out, passed the weight belt to me to hold onto.

I sank like a rock

He shot up

Duh!

Nothing serious happened, so it was a nice learning experience.

[DannyB]

[quote=applepie]

Originally Posted by Garf

I have a similar one to this. Someone once pointed to an abandoned weightbelt with maybe 15kg on it lying on the seabed as we drifted over on a fairly rapid drift dive.

QUOTE]

had similar, buddy collected a wt belt he found, when he wanted to sort something out, passed the weight belt to me to hold onto.

I sank like a rock

He shot up

Duh!

Nothing serious happened, so it was a nice learning experience.

Got close, I was the DM on an AOW course at stoney (on the hydrobox), the studnet managed to knock their weightbelt off. Fortunately the instructor was overweighted enough he grabbed him and slowed the ascent to the surface to fast but okay(ish).

I was now alone on the box, decided to be nice and grabbed the students weightbelt and started up, at about 30M or so I felt the belt slipping out of my hands. It then occured to me how bad dropping the belt was going to be... Held onto it very, very tight for the rest of the ascent.

A near miss but a lesson well learned.

Danny

[PW1664]

You won't do that agian!

I did similar many years ago, except in my case the bottom fell out of the bag. Luckily I managed to recover before hitting 10m, very close tho!

I did learn from it... 'onest...

[yazzyfooty]

Diving ST Abbs and the skipper knew we was diving in afternoon with him so said we could leave our kit stowed away on his boat. Another set of divers had used the boat between our morning and late afternoon dive but all kit was present. I just kitted up (i wear a Bowstone harness) and was soon in the water. A nice 15 metre dive of 40 minutes we were making a slow ascent and was just reaching out for the shot line to do 3 minute stop at 6 metre when i made an uncontrolled ascent. On getting back in the boat I realised i had dropped a weight pouch.
The press stud hadnt been snapped down and the velcro had not been secured correctly.

Lesson learnt
ALways, ALWAYS check your equipment before each dive. I am just so thankful it happened at the 6 metre and not at 15m.

[Paul Oliver]

Good lesson to learn, personally when scalloping i tend to send up my DSMB then attach the goody bag to my reel, as it gets heavier i winch up a turn or so. When its time to go up i send up the goody bag on a lifting bag then ascend as normal.

The move of the goody bag from reel to lifting bag needs a little practice but if you have done a few lits and shifts its not too hard.