Flags

[Warhammer]

I'm in need of a flag/float to tow on shore dives. What type do you all use and recommend? It looks to me like the ones that have the flag on a pole, a styrofoam ball for a float, and the lead weight to hold them upright, would be more visible. But they don't look like they'd work very well for towing. The ones that have a flag on inner tube looking thangamajig look like they'd tow well, but wouldn't be as visible.

[TwoBitTxn]

Warhammer,

How about extending the pole on the torpedo tube. You could use a round lashing (boy scout lashing)to attach a longer peice of pole. That would get your flag higher up in the air so boaters can see it better to either harass you or just well enough to want to some over at full throttle to see what it is that is puttering across the lake.

Tom

[Bear Hunter]

I use the one with the styro foam ball on it with the weight!

The only problem that i have had with towing a dive flag is that every once in a while it gets stuck on a passing boat or your own boats ladder! So my flag has a quick disconect on it now.

We have 4 divers in a group that I lobster hunt with. When one person runs out of air they go up the rope and the boat driver picks them up....thats why sometimes it gets caught on our ladder!

we also have a couple different lengths of rope one 25 feet for shallow dives and one 120 feet for the deep dives!

[greg somers]

I made it in the styrophome style with the flag sticking up about 3 feet.I find that towing anything is a pain because of the trailing rope can get caught in the flippers so we tend to tow and place with one person in charge of shifting the position of the weight when we move on.That way we all dive within the safety area of the float and we rarely have to shift it more than twice in a dive.Hope that helps.
Cheers Ears,
Gasman

[scubakat]

I like the inner tube float with the cover on it. You can literaly hang from it if you make yourself a little negative. Today we fast drifts with it. It was interesting to hang on to the float line and the buddy line and not get split like a wishbone or tangled :). It all worked fine as long as we kept the slack out of the lines.

-kate

[large_diver]

I use the simple one I bought from the LDS -- bullet shaped float with ledt weight in the bottom and flag on the top. I've taken this on shore dives as deep as 65 feet and it works fine (i generally tow flags on all shore dives).

While shore diving yesterday my buddy and I were talking about the variety of glgs we saw. Old car tire inner tube with flag. Milk crate with floats mounted around the outside with flag over the top (this was a photographer I know who hold his camera gear in the crate until he is ready to take it out. Also protects the camera if he wipes out clambering over the slippery rocks). The main advatage to these more elbaorate flag set-ups seems to be that they are more visible. Also handy for holding things until you are ready to descend.

[large_diver]

By the way -- received a rude reminder this weekend of the joys of diving in lobster-pot invested waters. Lobster fisherman here in New England often string 4-5 pots together. As a result, when towing a flag you have to worry about the line going up to the LP buoy as well as a horizontal line 5-10 feet off the bottom that strings the pots together (that you often don't even see in poor vis...).....

[scubabunny]

Actually, the innertubes with the covers are the most popular here. You can get some pretty visible ones (obnoxious yellow and green) from Global or Trident. And, they seem to be the most durable. The Trident ones have holes to put a 4ft stick and flag in...the Global ones are mesh bottom, but you can zip tie a pole and flag on it.

The ones from Trident have a zipper on the top cover, so it is great to store things in (ie water bottles for after the dive, extra masks and snorkels) without losing them in high surf.

Thing I don't like about the styrophome float is if the water is rough, or the rope gets pulled down, the foam will compress with the water pressure. A few of our shops rental float were found at about 90ft. The float was as thin as a pencil! Kinda cool!

[jmsdiver]

I use an inflatable float with flag (from Innovative Scuba (http://www.innovativescuba.com) and look under flags)....easy storage after diving. It is attatched to a 150 foot reel. Works great, highly visible. However, beware the jet skiier!