Nekton's SWATH ships 10/2009, Part 1

[Doc]

Don't get me wrong, not having 95s isn't a deal breaker for me....

Maybe, but DiverDoug1 brings up an interesting point. With his light air consumption and using nitrox, when diving certain profiles, he finds that extra 15cf to be nice.

Me? I'll come up 9 minutes earlier and have them gas up my 80, while I'm grabbing an iced tea and salivating over the fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

Then I'm back in the water for another 1hr+ dive. That's what liveaboards are for.

(How come they can't teach SCUBABoard's spell check to allow the word "Liveaboard" ?)

 

[Shasta_man]

I felt stability was better than usual at anchor but worse than usual when underway in real ocean as could be expected when driving a building around. Definitely surviveable but not quite so black and white.

 

[diverdoug1]

Don't get me wrong, not having 95s isn't a deal breaker for me....

Yeah, it's just that the constant nickel and diming of us that gets aggrivating!

 

[Cod]

Looks like a blast!

Nice write up too :cool3:

 

[cappyjon431]

Steel 95s should not be confusing. A good general dive briefing should tell divers to take 4-6 pounds off of what they normally dive with if they are used to alum 80s. The briefing should also explain that the tanks have 95 cubic feet of air at 2640 psi.

I liked having the steel 95s. They are not more expensive to service (or at least were not when I was on the boat), but they are significantly more expensive to purchase. They do get "uglier" from sitting on the dive deck all the time, but that is only surface rust, nothing to worry about.

Glad you enjoyed your trip Doc and thanks for the report. A good blend of fact and opinion!

 

[diverdoug1]

Steel 95s should not be confusing. A good general dive briefing should tell divers to take 4-6 pounds off of what they normally dive with if they are used to alum 80s. The briefing should also explain that the tanks have 95 cubic feet of air at 2640 psi.

I liked having the steel 95s. They are not more expensive to service (or at least were not when I was on the boat), but they are significantly more expensive to purchase. They do get "uglier" from sitting on the dive deck all the time, but that is only surface rust, nothing to worry about.

Glad you enjoyed your trip Doc and thanks for the report. A good blend of fact and opinion!

I spoke with the Nekton office yesterday in regards to using 80's. They said they will be "using 80's exclusively from now on ,just like everyone else, because the steel tanks cost too much to maintain and they don't last when exposed to the conditions on the dive deck....it will not be possible to request 95lp tanks". Please notice the quotation marks. I think it is a bunch of crap. It is hard to see why they are no longer offering the superior type of tank they have been using for 15 years. It's too bad that the corner cutting is directly affecting the diving now.

 

[cappyjon431]

I spoke with the Nekton office yesterday in regards to using 80's. They said they will be "using 80's exclusively from now on ,just like everyone else, because the steel tanks cost too much to maintain and they don't last when exposed to the conditions on the dive deck....it will not be possible to request 95lp tanks". Please notice the quotation marks. I think it is a bunch of crap. It is hard to see why they are no longer offering the superior type of tank they have been using for 15 years. It's too bad that the corner cutting is directly affecting the diving now.

Being like "everyone else" is not what made Nekton a great company for many years. Things like steel tanks made a big difference. While I don't believe that steel tanks are more expensive to maintain, in Nekton's defense they did cycle through the tanks every 4-5 years (replaced old with new) regularly because after a while they were not cosmetically appealing. Steel tanks are 2 to 2 1/2 times more expensive than aluminum. In the current economy, I guess I can understand their logic, but I sure liked those steel 95s.

I wonder if they did away with the "Sinkers" soft weight system and moved to lead blocks like everyone else?

 

[robint]

I spoke with the Nekton office yesterday in regards to using 80's. They said they will be "using 80's exclusively from now on ,just like everyone else, because the steel tanks cost too much to maintain and they don't last when exposed to the conditions on the dive deck....it will not be possible to request 95lp tanks". Please notice the quotation marks. I think it is a bunch of crap. It is hard to see why they are no longer offering the superior type of tank they have been using for 15 years. It's too bad that the corner cutting is directly affecting the diving now.

Doug, I think you are getting worked up over something pretty small. Does it really make that big a difference? I dive 80s primarily everywhere else because that is what they have. It is easier for me (and probably others) to know what weight to use as it is in my dive log. No issue. I hardly see this as "cutting corners which is directly affecting the diving" as you stated. They give you a tank to dive with and it is full of air.

 

[Doc]

...how does the diving work...finding the reef navigation and mooring for return...night diving procedures....

The best way I could answer this was to draw a quick sketch. If you think about the way the boat is "shaped" (it's a box, remember?), you can fairly easy figure out why they use a side mooring line. The whole superstructure acts as a sail. How this interacts with the current's forces on the underwater torpedo hulls, I don't know, but that's the way they moor her.

.....................................

They require that you have a safety sausage surface marker. If you don't have one, they'll give you a rolled up length of yellow plastic tube that is open on one end.

Most of the places had some mild current, so at night, navigation became especially important. We used all of the granny lines and pulled ourselves along the surface- it conserves air and is a lot easier than kicking against any surface current. We descended and aimed towards where we saw the anchor line hitting the water maybe 40 feet "over that way"... then we found it angling down through the water on down to the mooring pin.

For night dives.... I brought a small strobe and tied it to the mooring line about 10' off the ocean floor so it was easier to make a return trip. Don't tether it lower than that or it may be blocked by reef structures. They require a tank light, so either buy a cyalume stick from them or tie a small light on your first stage~ that's what I did.

The anchor line can have a lot of "scope" (length), so with any winds or surface current, the boat can swing dramatically- you can't count on it being over the same coral head or wall during the period of the dive! If they let out a lot of scope, it could potentially be 400' away from where you started... but the mooring pin doesn't move at all !

The mooring lines themselves (below the buoy) were remarkably clean, and I am no fan of gloves, but I used a small piece of nylon strap to hang onto the line if need be. That was really useful for ascending slowly at the end of the dive- or tuck one glove in your BC pocket for those transition phases.

The Nekton always runs a line aft with a float ball- beats trying to kick your way back home with a surface current. They keep a chase boat in the water, and there is a heavily weighted stainless hang bar set at 15'. There is a fresh tank hanging there with two regs in case you want to hang around for a while.

 

[DiveMaven]

Keep in mind that the mooring pins are often right near the best part of the reef. There were many dives we did in both Belize and the Bahamas where we never left sight of the boat...and never felt a need to since there was so much to see there.

We also kept a glove in a pocket for when we had to use the mooring line to do safety stops, otherwise we tried to come up right under the boat since often there were fish right under the boat that were fun to watch.

Although not having the 95s is a disappointment, it's an understandable change to the 80s and wouldn't cause me not to cruise with them. I hope one day to enjoy another Nekton cruise.