Dive flag entanglement, oh the IRONY!

Hey all, just wondering what your feelings are on dive flag entanglement, and how easy it is to become entangled in your flag's rope/ cord.

I have witnessed my buddy become entangled three times, ranging from easy to fix, to not so easy to fix.

My observations have come from shore diving in florida, where the current is there at times, but others it is gone.


In my opinion, there are two causes of entanglement:
1) current related slack in the line
- for example, if you are towing the flag against the current, and switch direction, the rope may gain slack and be more inclined to tangle on your gear.

2) Distracted diver!
- When going with the current, and the flag is behind you, if you stop at all, the flag will float closer to you, giving that slack.
Why would somebody stop?
To catch lobsters of course!

What this does is adds more equipment to the mix.
Now you have a tickle stick, net, and catch bag.


As a buddy I have always been there to lend a helping hand, and even take the flag a few times, because I knew what would happen

We have had situations in poor visibility where we had to stay close (1-3' vis) and a simple change in direction resulted in line entanglement of one or both divers. I agree it is a pain in the butt unless you constantly keep some sort of tension on the line at all times regardless of direction, current, etc. Not an easy job. Maybe someone here has been tangle free for many years and can offer some advice. I can only concur with your finding.s

Yeah, always some tension on the line. It can be a piece of cake or a merry-go-round ride. I'm glad there aren't any boats anywhere around here.

I shore dive a lot in FL and yes get tangled every now n then heh totally agree with what you're saying. I usually will wrap the flag rope under one of my arms or try and keep it away from my back/fins. once in a while i'll use a reel and clip it to me but I dont like the fact of being attached like that cause I can see that creating a problem. even tho you bring a flag still watch for boats... this past weekend at BHB boaters didnt seem to care bout the dive flags
[video=vimeo;28071768]http://vimeo.com/28071768[/video]

Great video. Why was the boat in that narrow channel? It appears as though the channel to the west is wider and has the guard rails in place.

not entirely sure, I had some friends in the area then heard about this incident. and just came across this video online about it. I was not there, but as far as I knew I was pretty sure boats are suppose to use the channels towards the center of the bridge further away from the divers

there is also a thread over in the FL Conch Divers section addressing the issue http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/florida-conch-divers/393717-sailboat-runs-over-diveflags-bhb.html

How many divers have to get killed or seriously injured for the Coast Guards to take respect of dive flags seriously?

DiverDean59:

How many divers have to get killed or seriously injured for the Coast Guards to take respect of dive flags seriously?

Click to expand...

If too many divers get killed, the results won't have anything to do with dive flags. First reaction will be to limit the places where diving is allowed. Starting with bridges, with the Blue Heron being a great one to make it a "lesson". There is plenty of boater's money to push legislation their way.

Ana has it right ... the initial response to a boater/diver incident is almost always going to be a push to ban diving in that area. Boaters have a lot more political clout than divers. A few years back I witnessed a large (40+ foot) powerboat run over a dive flag at high speed ... in an area that was a public beach and designated "no-wake" zone. Because it was an OW class, and the parents of one of the students was there ready to take a video of their daughter exiting the water, we actually captured the incident on video. The boat was clearly identified. A call to the local harbor patrol resulted in them telling us that unless someone was injured, there was nothing they could do about it.

A friend of mine took this picture last year ...



... Bob (Grateful Diver)