SMB, lift

[Reg Braithwaite]

However he brought the urban legend up, not I, therefore I want to put it to rest.

Ok, without agreeing or disagreeing with whether you can use a bag of any sort for redundant lift, let's focus on an area of agreement:

If you plan to use the SMB/Lift as an emergency safety device in case your BCD fails or your dry suit floods

If my wing has a catastrophic failure AND my dry suit floods, I can *still* swim my single tank rig to the surface without worrying about redundant buoyancy.

Therefore I do not select a bag for its suitability as a back up, nor do I practice the skill. When I have dived in a wet suit (and therefore not had a dry suit as a backup to the wet suit), I chose an AL80 instead of a steel tank to compensate for the additional weight needed to get the neoprene to sink.

Whether you believe a lift bag can be used to provide redundant buoyancy or not, I suggest the correct thing to do is to select your gear such that it is not necessary for quite some time.

At some point in the future you may be doing penetration dives, or decompression dives, or something else where your rig is too heavy to swim to the surface or you will need to manage buoyancy to deco or something else.

At that point you will have been trained on a specific system, plus you will have read dozens or hundreds of posts debating how and why people choose various forms of redundancy and whatever we say in this thread will have long been forgotten

 

[Blackwood]

Actually, most wing liners are breached while storing and moving gear around, pretty common cause. That's why it's always so important to store gear to avoid damage. This is much more common than in water damage of liners.

Sure, I meant 'in water' damage.

 

[jpitz31]

Thanks everyone for all of the great feedback.

After my deep and wreck classes I will have over 50 dives and need to do my dry suit class and a few enriched air dives. I will then have enough prerequisites for my Tech Level 1 class.

I plan to keep on learning and taking classes to get up to speed.

Thanks

Joe

 

[Aquabear]

Thanks Doc Intrepid. I actually bought an open circuit SMB and thought it was broken(duh) so I sent it back. I did purchase a closed one, as I know from AOW, Rescue training and other divers it is a must especially diving here in NY. Thank you for your comments. Look forward ot reading many more.