Curiosity - Wreck Diving Tie In Anchor Retrieval

[Randy g]

I've done both pulling with a lift bag and poly ball. With the lift bag you don't hang out under the anchor. You can free ascend and swim to the boat or pop your own bag if you have deco, then the Capt can keep an eye on your location. The boat will go right along at roughly the same pace with you, in the current. Surface and swim to the boat or grab the anchor line and get pulled over.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I've done both pulling with a lift bag and poly ball. With the lift bag you don't hang out under the anchor. You can free ascend and swim to the boat or pop your own bag if you have deco, then the Capt can keep an eye on your location. The boat will go right along at roughly the same pace with you, in the current. Surface and swim to the boat or grab the anchor line and get pulled over.

yeah that seems perfectly logical and the way I would do it (except I would be clear of the boat) . But the description was walk the anchor up and then release to the surface, then hang from the loop of rope below the anchor and get drug by the wind... It just made no sense to me.

If you float the anchor, it is on the surface. The crew would be able to pull all the anchor line in and then recover the anchor while drifting and watching the smb which was deployed at depth when the anchor was lifted off the bottom.

 

[manni-yunk]

We stopped using an anchor...to anchor.

We drop a cinder block with the chain attached to it. A tie in team unhooks the block, moves the chain to a sturdy part of the wreck and wraps around the wreck then clips the chain to itself with a locking caribeener. Then a marker (cup, cork, floaty - whatever) is released to the surface to signal to the boat to pick up the other end of the anchor line (on a poly ball) and tie off to the boat.

Then the tie in team ties the anchor chain to the wreck with 2 seperate 6" pieces of sisal.


After the line is pulled in - the weight of the boat is actually on the sisal and now the tie in point with the chain. (easier to unclip the chain and not if the sisal pops prematurely the chain is there to hold the boat.
When we are done - the chain is unclipped from the wreck and now boat is basically on the two pieces of Sisal. The untie team ascends on the anchor line. After the last diver gets back onboard the boat we pull in everyone's gas lines, deco lines, equipment lines....and whatever other mess everyone hung from the boat that day....and "back down" to pop the sisal from the wreck. After the sisal breaks, the line and chain are retrieved via a hydraulic capstan.

We have changed what we do and how we do it over the years but this last method seems to work best and I know several other boats that do the same thing.

 

[industrious95]

The boat I go on uses a sand anchor and a grappling hook that we tie into the wreck. On our private charters, first diver in ties into the wreck and last diver up unties.

When I untie, I just swim the hook from the wreck and drop it in the sand, down-current. Then I just ascend on the grappling hook line, do my safety stop and go up to the boat. The captain usually waits until I come aboard to pull up the grappling line, unless we've made some arrangement earlier where he's going to pull it up while I'm still in.

The sand anchor is never actually on the dive site, but it helps keep the boat fairly stationary.

 

[Aquabot]

We stopped using an anchor...to anchor.

We drop a cinder block with the chain attached to it. A tie in team unhooks the block, moves the chain to a sturdy part of the wreck and wraps around the wreck then clips the chain to itself with a locking caribeener. Then a marker (cup, cork, floaty - whatever) is released to the surface to signal to the boat to pick up the other end of the anchor line (on a poly ball) and tie off to the boat.

Then the tie in team ties the anchor chain to the wreck with 2 seperate 6" pieces of sisal.


After the line is pulled in - the weight of the boat is actually on the sisal and now the tie in point with the chain. (easier to unclip the chain and not if the sisal pops prematurely the chain is there to hold the boat.
When we are done - the chain is unclipped from the wreck and now boat is basically on the two pieces of Sisal. The untie team ascends on the anchor line. After the last diver gets back onboard the boat we pull in everyone's gas lines, deco lines, equipment lines....and whatever other mess everyone hung from the boat that day....and "back down" to pop the sisal from the wreck. After the sisal breaks, the line and chain are retrieved via a hydraulic capstan.

We have changed what we do and how we do it over the years but this last method seems to work best and I know several other boats that do the same thing.

So your just leaving the cinder blocks below?

 

[waterpirate]

The point of carrying the anchor up and staying attached to the boat is survival. Boaters here do not look out for anything, let alone a dive flag or smb. We dive in, near, and around the major shipping lanes for the northeast. The boat is equipped with AIS, which tells freighters, tankers, roro's, tugs and tows, that we are a dive operation/salvage, so they change course if needed.

Every local has it's own methods based on enviroment and conditions.
YMMV
Eric

 

[dumpsterDiver]

The point of carrying the anchor up and staying attached to the boat is survival. Boaters here do not look out for anything, let alone a dive flag or smb. We dive in, near, and around the major shipping lanes for the northeast. The boat is equipped with AIS, which tells freighters, tankers, roro's, tugs and tows, that we are a dive operation/salvage, so they change course if needed.

Every local has it's own methods based on enviroment and conditions.
YMMV
Eric

If you float the anchor and deploy an smb at depth with a reel or spool within a minute of releasing the anchor, the captain of the boat should be able to haul in the anchor line and hook, while keeping visual contact with your marker and then once his anchor/line is secure he should be able to keep the boat close to your SMB and protect you from other vessels...

I don't understand your perspective, other than it makes it easier for the guy in the wheelhouse if you just hang from a rope, getting drug through the water by a vessel being blown in the wind...

 

[manni-yunk]

So your just leaving the cinder blocks below?

allegedly.

 

[waterpirate]

Different ropes for different folks I guess. The geographic differance is that if the wind is blowing up here hard enough to push around the boat. The seas prolly prevented departure to start with.
Merry Christmas!
Eric

 

[Aquabot]

allegedly.

I'm not alleging , I'm asking. Hence the question mark. Just seems like a wasteful and trashy way to do if they were being left below is all.