Wreck Diving Kit

[milldog]

Originally Posted by Lou

Rather than get all the kit I would recommend finding yourself a mentor, or an instructor who does the sort of diving to which you aspire, and learn a bit about what you want to do, before rushing in with both feet/fins!

Lou will be avilable next year knee dependant

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by rossbale28

Hi,

I'm wanting to get more "into" wreck diving next season having built up some UK experience. Is there any specific kit that I should be looking at/would be useful to have for Wreck Diving??

Also, I have a reel (make/model remains un-named) that requires you to hold a small lever down to release the line - have done a few mary poppins impressions with this when trying to send up a blob - any suggestions on how to stop this happening/advice would be most welcome/useful.

Thanks,

Ross.

Hi Ross

Wreck diving has a couple of new dimensions to consider but apart from that its just another dive.

However the couple of new dimensions are quite important.

Accidentally going inside a wreck in low viz situations can kill you

Getting caught up on wreckage or the fishing line and nets that often cover wrecks can kill you

Lots of sharp edges can damage equipment, dry suits wings etc and can be a big problem.

With UK wreck diving I would suggest the following equipment is well worth considering.

A good review of your finning and buoyancy control would be an excellent idea. Most UK wrecks are silty.

The best torch you can buy. I cant stress this enough. A powerfully torch (10W HID or better) makes the dive better and allowed you to signal your buddy.

A minimum to two reels and two SMBs and the ability to use them

The ability to reel off (lay line) should be mastered as soon as possible and I would advise a course with Mark Powel (You can find him on here) and lots and lots of practice. This will allow you to dive wrecks in less than 5m of viz with a degree of safety.

I personally would advise a redundant gas supply and the ability to use it. Be that a pony a twin set or a dive god buddy dedicated to saving your arse is not relevant but ultimately on a wreck you can end up in a situation where going straight up is not always an option and you can lose your buddy very easily in low viz and behind bits of wreckage.

I would advise a minimum of two cutting tools possibly shears(I don't like them but they are good) and give serious thought to accessing them and loosing them (consider a lanyard) before now its likely the dive knife has never left it scabbard in anger. I use my one all the time.

Start doing wrecks you can find information on and drawings of and learn the layout of a wreck. This will enhance both safety and enjoyment of the dive.

Never ever go inside a wreck unless you are 100% certain there is a way out other than the way you came in. IE a swim through. If in doubt lay line. If you haven't had a lot of practice laying line DON'T go inside the wreck. More people get in trouble with their own line than with any other entanglement hazard.

The hardest thing to achieve IMHO is to find a like minded buddy and to develop your skills together. If you can crack this one you are laughing.

Have fun and if your down my way id be happy to take you out on a dive. Mid week is best for me.

ATB

Mark Chase

[Lou]

Originally Posted by milldog

Lou will be avilable next year knee dependant

Git.

With your twin 20's you are next in line anyway.

[bob wippin]

WTF this is a prime example of asking yorkshire divers a question with no tec diving inclination and getting a full on tec answer. Why are people telling him to do tec diving courses and buy all the kit, sorry just remembered thats because all wreck dives in the U.K are deep cold and dark....What's that I smell....

Is all you need to get started in wreck diving is a small reel, a ratchet reel would be good. A torch possibly a U.K. as they are quite small, cheap but still good torches. Then for limited wreck penetration this will be covered in the PADI wreck speciality guide, depending on the school that teaches you.

It has been suggested that you seek tec level training. I would not recommend this just for starting out in wreck diving. Look at it this way it will take you quite a while before you are happy in twins etc just to do the deco course, and anly once you have finished this will you be able to begin the advanced wreck course. With all the kit and training, travel you are looking at the best part of £2000.Then you find after you have done a tec wreck diving course it wasn't what you thought it would be.

[Lou]

Originally Posted by bob wippin

WTF this is a prime example of asking yorkshire divers a question with no tec diving inclination and getting a full on tec answer. Why are people telling him to do tec diving courses and buy all the kit, sorry just remembered thats because all wreck dives in the U.K are deep cold and dark....What's that I smell....

Erm....no they didn't...they suggested what would be needed for certain stuff, or what kit they had.

Originally Posted by bob wippin

Is all you need to get started in wreck diving is a small reel, a ratchet reel would be good. A torch possibly a U.K. as they are quite small, cheap but still good torches. Then for limited wreck penetration this will be covered in the PADI wreck speciality guide, depending on the school that teaches you.

Oh, you mean an instructor who does the type of diving you want to do, you mean? Sure I said that somewhere...

Originally Posted by bob wippin

It has been suggested that you seek tec level training. I would not recommend this just for starting out in wreck diving. Look at it this way it will take you quite a while before you are happy in twins etc just to do the deco course, and anly once you have finished this will you be able to begin the advanced wreck course. With all the kit and training, travel you are looking at the best part of £2000.Then you find after you have done a tec wreck diving course it wasn't what you thought it would be.

To be honest, if Ross is looking at just dropping ona wreck and swimming round then it is a bit of a daft question - just treat it s a reef or a rock or anything else you would dive on. To "wreck dive" in any meaningful way usually requires some further degree of technical diving - which, to my mind, mostly needs further training. The intermnediate step is getting a mentor or an instructor to go through a few set-ups and sies with him, rahter than even buying a twinset without any idea of what he may want.

[bob wippin]

No! The guy is interested in starting out doing a bit of wreck penetration. As a response to this he gets told that he will need X,Y and Z, before he can start doing wreck penetration. I wasn't really on about getting an instructor into the type of diving you do neccesarily. Most dive centres offer a PADI wreck course and most I know of teach penetration. It is really only for tech courses you aim to get an instructor into the same type of diving you do. This is because the main content of a tec course comes from the instructor, there is much less formal guidance for instructors on tec courses than on rec courses, which tend to have more formal hoops to jump through

[ardhill]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

Have fun and if your down my way id be happy to take you out on a dive. Mid week is best for me.

Ross, if I were you I would certainly take Mark up on his offer. Hey, Id take a day off work and go diving with you Mark, but you live a little far away.

[Lou]

Originally Posted by bob wippin

No! The guy is interested in starting out doing a bit of wreck penetration. As a response to this he gets told that he will need X,Y and Z, before he can start doing wreck penetration. I wasn't really on about getting an instructor into the type of diving you do neccesarily. Most dive centres offer a PADI wreck course and most I know of teach penetration. It is really only for tech courses you aim to get an instructor into the same type of diving you do. This is because the main content of a tec course comes from the instructor, there is much less formal guidance for instructors on tec courses than on rec courses, which tend to have more formal hoops to jump through

I don't know - if you are only interested in rec stuff - then get a rec instructor. Still kind of falls into the rules.

FWIW, I am a bit wary of the "only a little bit of penetration" argument. A little bit of penetration can get you into just as much trouble as a alot When you can't see what way is out it doesn't really matter how far in you are.

[Captain Deco]

Originally Posted by bob wippin

No! The guy is interested in starting out doing a bit of wreck penetration. As a response to this he gets told that he will need X,Y and Z, before he can start doing wreck penetration. I wasn't really on about getting an instructor into the type of diving you do neccesarily. Most dive centres offer a PADI wreck course and most I know of teach penetration. It is really only for tech courses you aim to get an instructor into the same type of diving you do. This is because the main content of a tec course comes from the instructor, there is much less formal guidance for instructors on tec courses than on rec courses, which tend to have more formal hoops to jump through

Well if he wants to dive on a wreck with a crappy beaver reel he has trouble using then good luck. If he wants to do it properly then he needs advice and instruction from someone who knows what they are doing, and kit that he can use that's up to the job. I did not suggest for one minute that he buy what I have, or do what I did, but people who want to see nice wrecks need to do it the right way. As someone has stated, there is no such thing as a little penetration. You either go in or you don't and without the correct gear and training you come a cropper. Most of the training I have had has come from my dive buddy, a BSAC DL who has loads of experience and instructs me for free with his experience. Other things I have learnt have been offf people I have dived with from here. Only a little of the stuff I do came from courses.

Seriously.......do you want to go into a wreck dive with someone who has a crappy reel they aren't sure of using? I wouldn't think so. And I know there are loads of dives in the non-tech ranges, like the fleur, the Kyarra, the Valentines, the Stanegarth etc, but surely the whole thing about diving is to get that feeling of being an adventurer - the fleur is a bit shit for that sort of feeling. There are wrecks in the shallower ranges that are worth doing, that haven't been dived to death, but having never seen them I must defer to more experienced divers in that area. (digger in the post below is one of them). The shallow wrecks I have mentioned are not in that adventure zone though......(in my opinion)

Redundancy and decent kit and training do cost money, but we are all grown ups aren't we? I think we know how much all this stuff costs, and I am happy to pay £2000 to be trained to surface so that I can tell a great story to my friends of the cool thing I saw.

[Digger]

Well, personally I'd get buoyancy nailed. Mary Poppins weren't a great diver, and you need to have that pinned down pretty well before complicating things with more equipment, or with doing complicated courses which you may well struggle with if sending up bags has caused problems recently.

If you're buying gear and want to keep your options open for wreck diving you won't go far wrong with most of the gear out there. I would suggest a wing and backplate setup will give you lots of mounting options, but there are lots of options available on normal jackets which will do you fine.

Most wrecks regularly dived are relatively shallow, less than 30m you could dive a different wreck around the UK every day for the rest of your life. That said, some of us choose to go deeper for various reasons.

Make sure your reel is working the way it should - go meet up with Mark (you're a bit far away to come up and see me or my locals, but he's not far from you and can point you in the right direction) and he can help out with configuration, good sites to dive depending on where you're at at the moment, and I'm sure will be happy to talk about diving wrecks forever, which can only be a good thing for you.

And you can get "that" feeling on shallow as shite wrecks. I dived one of the best wrecks I've done in a hell of a long time last weekend, in all of 15m of water. The fact it was so shallow meant you could relax completely, no rebreather required, and it was an adventure, because we all knew it hadn't been dived in ages, and were trying to make new discoveries, which some of us may have done. So depth isn't the only way to do it. I know of another 58 wrecks just like it around the UK coastline too...

Digs.