BC major malfunction?

[PUGMASTER]

Hello all,

I'm a newbie diver with OW. Ever hear of a BC mafunction such as a popped chamber?
Do most BC's have multi chambers?
What should you do if you can't get air into them for surfacing?

I don't mean to be so simple minded, but it's one of those things that makes me nervous... No emergency procedures were covered during my course other than using my dive buddy.

 

[KrisB]

Hello all,

I'm a newbie diver with OW. Ever hear of a BC mafunction such as a popped chamber?
Do most BC's have multi chambers?
What should you do if you can't get air into them for surfacing?

I don't mean to be so simple minded, but it's one of those things that makes me nervous... No emergency procedures were covered during my course other than using my dive buddy.

Most (all?) BCs have overpressure valves that will allow air to escape if they are overfilled.

If your BC develops a leak, it will likely be either visually obvious, or a small (pinhole) leak. The pinhole leak won't leak air quickly enough to be a problem for you on the dive (or at the surface).

If you can't get air into your BC (either via low-pressure inflator, nor oral inflate), then the way of being buoyant is to ditch your weight system.

 

[divinginn]

unless your severly overweighted,you should be able to swim your rig up,even if your bc rucptures it should still hold some air,last resort is to ditch some weight,used to dive without a bc the first 10 years of diving,kinda miss the freedom of just wearing a backpack and tank,hard to do wearing a thicker wetsuit though.

 

[diveman7683]

If your BC fails dump some lead and you'll get some positive bouyancy.

 

[PUGMASTER]

Thanks,

I've always been a sinker, admire those people who can float.

I was worried if somehow the BC got ripped or torn at depth. They seem to be very durable. Dump weights, even though I'm a sinker the buoancy of the tank alone should get me up right?

 

[cavernicola]

The buoyancy of the tank or the wetsuit/drysuit should be enough to get you ascending,
if this isn't the case, then why were you using weights?

You can swim your way up anyway which is a safer option than getting buoyant

And dont worry about toring your BC at depth, it is not common problem and if you maintain it properly (storing and rinsing correctly after every dive) it will last long time workin fine

Rafa

 

[divinginn]

i would worry more about reg malfunctions,or great whites chewing on your tank or something.

 

[reefugee]

Just get a drysuit and use that as a backup buoyancy device. ;-) That's how I justified my drysuit - it's a life support system.

Seriously though - like other have said, most BC's have overpressure valve so it would be hard to burst. A few people talked about dumping weights, but I would only dump weights if you can't swim up. Then once you are at the surface - dump the weights if you can't maintain bouyancy. Dumping weight immediately may get you to the surface faster than you want.

 

[KrisB]

My "dump weights" really had more to do with staying afloat at the surface... because that's what I thought his question was ("for surfacing").

Oops!

 

[Marek K]

Your tank may or may not be positively buoyant, depending what it's made out of (steel or aluminum) and how much air is in it. But it's not going to be much, either way.

The big thing that keeps you positively buoyant (tending to float) is your wetsuit. That's what your weights are mainly there for to compensate for -- and the amount of weight should be just barely enough to do that.

Like people have implied, you really don't want to dump your weights at depth in order to surface, even in a mild emergency (like a complete -- and unlikely to the point of being negligible -- failure of your BC). That would make you pop uncontrolled to the surface, and there would be some real risks associated with that -- like embolism and decompression sickness.

But if I did have a complete BC failure, and for some reason couldn't swim up (that Great White again )... I'd probably take the risk. But that would be an extreme case, where the choice would be between decompression injury and something worse.

--Marek