So, I thought I'd tell you about my newest piece of dive kit. I've gotten over my recent cylinder/tank/bottle obsession (I am now the proud owner of a very large 7L aluminium pony/bail-out bottle! and a small 3L ali with 40% O2 in it (I will prob fill it with 80% or 100% O2 for the surface as neither me nor my buddy carry O2) I did a course at my research centre on Hyperbaric Medicine and we hooked a victim up to an oxygen monitor and got them to breathe O2 and we were all shocked to see how quickly O2 permeates the body, so short advice ALWAYS give O2 without a moments hesitation.....anyhoo, back to the dSMB.....
In my opinion deploying and launching a dSMB at depth is about one of the most dangerous things you can do, you only need to be caught in your reel and whooosh, you're heading skyward at a silly speed. So nailing the launch is a very important skill that needs to mastered. I once dived with a SUSAC'er who could deploy and launch his SMB in seconds, put me to shame!
My obvious purchase was going to be the Buddy SMB which has the integrated 0.1L bottle attached, eliminates the need to use your exhaled air or octopus reg to inflate SMB (which again is risky as the octopus can easily free flow). However I found out that the Buddy bottle has to be opened then closed before it rockets skywards, otherwise the little bottle can, and invariably will fill with water....nice! So I have now opted for a 'frog' SMB. Why have you never heard of 'frog' equipment? Well, you're lucky enough not to be embroiled in the global debate over technical equipment. Long story short....Halcyon are the Rolls Royce of tech kit (with prices to match!), a disgruntled employee/designer/whatever 'stole' ALL of halcyon's designs and set up frog under a South African license (SA not having much in the way of copyright infringement laws!!) So you can buy a Halcyon SMB for £50!! or a frog for £15-20, same kit, different name.
If you search the site/ view gear / accesories you'll see the signal marker buoy.
Not so easy to see in their pic, but the whole SMB is sealed with an inflator that attaches to your drysuit or BCD direct feed hose, no need for octopus inflation, but then you are removing a buoyancy aid at depth! Using this with my mini Mcmahon reel makes for a compact and trustworthy dSMB. As I mentioned in yesterdays scallop post I've yet to launch the SMB (something to do with diving in the middle of fishermen and returning with 25bar in my cylinder (yeah, I know! didn't factor in the 8kgs of scallops during dive planning!!) but my regular buddy carries one and always manages to launch his SMB about 5 mins before me!
This post may not be relevant to all of you, but worth mentioning anyway? He says after half an hour of typing! My dives just now are mainy shore dives, only done one rib dive here, boohoo. But most of them are in the direct path of Navy warships/subs and big ferries, so SMB needed if things go pear-shape.
I will endevour to report how simple my launching goes once I've done so, and add some clearer pics of reel and SMB design when I can. Golly, I've written more in this post than I have for my PhD!! oops
Happy diving and get practicing those dSMB launches!
I'm one of the few people I know who will invariably ascend at the end of a boat dive under a dSMB (unless we've found our way back to the shot). I've also been known to deploy my dSMB on a few shore dives: mostly when circumstances have led to a change of dive plan I've used it to signal the shore cover of our location. I actually enjoy sending up my blob & I take at least one on every dive. I now always take a back up on boat dives having witnessed several divers losing theirs & having to ascend mid water with no surface marker & boat traffic buzzing about... risky.
Anyway, my set up (which I'm 100% happy with):
primary
- red self sealing Buddy (SMBc) with "charlie" written in large letters
- McMahon compact reel
I attach the line to the SMB & stow it in my dedicated pouch (on my left) with the velcro tab of the pouch passing through the reel's handle. Thus, I can easily deploy the whole set-up in moments. I inflate using my Buddy blast air horn which fits beautifully into the baffle of the bag: easy peasy
secondary
- Kent tooling yellow SMB with CO2 canister with "charlie" written in large letters
- generic finger spool
Again, the line is attached to the blob before stowage. This one is stored within the cylindrical webbing on my right (that's designed for holding the fenzy bottle). Deployed in seconds & sent up without any need for gas from my tanks. If for any reason the canister failed, the SMB has a baffle which means that it can be inflated traditionally. CO2 canisters bought for peanuts from a tyre inflator eBay shop.
Cheeky is spot on with his comments about Buddy SMBi ( the ones with their own cylinders).
I decided against one because:
- they are bulky, meaning that they wouldn't fit easily in pockets or pouches
- they're expensive (>£60)
- water getting into the fenzy bottle might not seem like a big deal until you realise that you then have to fill that cylinder from a main one & the risk is that you contaminate your main cylinder with seawater. It has happened to people & could be nasty: cylinders corrode very quickly if saline gets inside of them. _________________ skål charlie
Great idea to have a back up, especially as it seems so easily to deploy it! may need to invest in one!! Thought you might like the dSMB post Charlie!
Amusing story about my one and only rib dive; as a thank you to me for starring in the DDRC's promotional DVD (yes, I got 15mins of fame playing Bent diver no. 1 (insert joke here)) my buddy and I were taken out on Plymouth Sound BSAC club rib......of course they have 2.....one is 5.8m with some sort of engine thing on the back, the other is mammoth! 6.8m in length 225 horses kicking it along at 55knotts!! <that's like 70mph! I may have exaggerated the speed, but one stat I know is at full throttle it gulps 40 litres of fuel per hour!! It actually has a speedo (or whatever the maritime equivalent is) and a litre/hour thingy so you know when you'll have to call the RNLI!
Anyhoo, buddy and I taken out on a jolly, nice little 18m dive in a site reminicent of St.Abbs (nice underwater garden type). At the end of the dive, which we decided not to even attempt to navigate on as we had boat cover! Dan (buddy) sends up his smb in seconds, Cheeky faffs for a few mins, eventually unfurls cheap yellow smb (ebay) launches it a few mins later to much amusement from ourselves. Well, we ascended and upon reaching the surface were met v quickly by boat with many concerned looking hairy BSAC divers, some blokes there too! Our combined Smb's had intertwined on the way up so they saw a red then yellow SMB together. This is what concerned them.??
Apparently in the world of tech diving if you have an air problem, or your decompression cylinder has failed, the procedure is to send up regular SMB, then attach emergency (yellow) SMB with a slate describing problem (I need air, I need O2, I've lost buddy etc etc).
So when Cheeky (as technical as a 1980's mechano set) and Dan (commercial diver used to being pulled up by rope attached to Full face helmet) sent up 'emergency' signal, the hairy BSAC'ers wondered what the heck was wrong. We laughed copiously in the face of grumpy old men! Needless to say we've yet to be on another dive with them. Cracking journey back to Plymouth at top speed though. The skipper slowed to a stop once one we passed a massive rock outcrop (Mewstone rock) and handed over the reins to another skipper. We looked confused. He explained that "once we pass the Mewstone, he forgets which rock to aim for, and as it's a busy shipping channel, it's best left to someone who didn't forget their contact lenses!, he even said "gotta know your limits boys!"
I suspected I had a bend the next morning, both elbows were sore and red, and managed to convince myself I was heading for recompression (at my place of work, of course!), until I called Dan to ask how he was...He replied "Fine mate, but my arms are bloody sore from holding onto the boat at full throttle, those guys are f*&%ing crazy!" Bend solved!!
Yeah, that's why I got a yellow blob for my back up: so that it could double up as an emergency signal. I could clip it on to the line of my primary & send it up as a distress signal if I ever proceed into the realm of techiedom.
I've done a few RIB dives now, most recently with Gus on our dives of the HMS Campania (1st aircraft carrier in the world) and the HMS Saucy. It was a monster very fast RIB too which held 12 divers. I enjoy the sense of speed buzzing along on the surface but have to admit prefering the convenience of hardboats: ladders ... and even diver lifts... luxury
Interesting that you mentioned about sore joints in this thread. It's worth people being aware that hanging on to a reel while doing deco stops can actually lead to bends in the affected hand/arm. It's best to alternate your position: changing hands periodically etc. For long hangs on shot lines, a jon line that allows you to clip yourself on is a good idea. Clipping yourself to your SMB's reel is never a good idea. Imagine if you were clipped on & the line got tangled around a boat's prop shaft. You'd be reeled in like a prize salmon only to be eviscerated like a Christmas turkey... not advised.
Oh, and as this is the "Top Tips" section, mine is to clip your line onto your SMB and stow as one unit if at all possible. It saves a lot of faffing underwater especially with neoprene gloves on. _________________ skål charlie
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