Mako implosion at 140 Feet

Thought I might share my recent experience with my fellow divers.

Last week we went to Croatia for a few days diving. First dive was without scooters and was without event.

Second dive we planned to scooter to a remote reef along the shore where there tends to be more sealife and much more living coral.

Scootering there with my dive buddy in tow we first found a gill net streching from the sea floor to within three meters of the surface. We ascended to go over it and continued another 10 minutes to the reef. As we approached we descended to about 25 meters till we saw the wall. I let off the scooter, my buddy let go of the crotch strap and we began descending to see what was hanging out at the base of the wall. I was holding the scooter handle in my right hand and my buddies were in front of me. The third had his own scooter and had joind us in a three man team. So, as we approached the sand there was an incredible BOOM and my mako immediately lost all boyancy and headed to the bottom, dragging me with it. I have never in my life heard such a noise. The impact on my right hand holding the scooter was as if a firecracker exploded a couple of feet away. I heard the noise and before the scooter started faling I knew what had happened. I was sinking fast and began adding air to my wing as fast as possible. My one buddy, the one without the scooter and with much less experience turned and gawked. The buddy with the scooter gives me the Ok and I respond with a very quick thumbs up signal. He sees me struggling to regain neutral boyancy and races over to grab the scooter and help me lift it.

Unfortunately this make us over positive and we begin to ascend too quickly. I quikly tell him to drop it and let me wrestle it. WE had only just begun to ascend so it wasn't yet a problem but I anticipated a greater battle trying to ascend together. He releases the scooter and I quickly gain control and get neutral at about 130 feet. I signal them ok and we begin our ascent. We had traveled about 1/2 mile on the scooters and I was not looking forward to the swim back. Thankfully my buddy was on the ball and swam up and passed his scooter to me. He and the other swam back as I dragged the dead soldier back to shore.

In the end it was a very interesting experience and I was very grateful that it happened in a location where we had a firm floor at about 145 feet. If we had been on a nearby wall with a 200 foot floor it would have been much more stressful.

I think water only infiltrated the battery compartment so plan to replace the face plate. So, anybody here know where I can pick up an aluminum faceplate for a Mako

I also plan to sell this and buy a real one.

Looking at a zuex or sierra.

Have you contacted Oceanic? I am sure they will want to know and probably inspect the damage for analysis if possible. You are really lucky. You could have been seriously injured, especially if you had been closer to the maximum rated depth.

There is a story that went around in the days of home-made Plexiglas underwater camera housings. A diver had one implode at ~170' and mangled his hand loosing several fingers and nearly lost consciousness.

I was on a design project where the requirement was for the housing to deform and cause flooding before implosion. It turned out to be a very difficult to do reliably after crushing a half dozen prototypes. Seemed like a great idea at the time.

Glade you are OK.

No, I haven't contacted anyone. Well, other than to look for another faceplate

The thing is over 5 years old. Can't imagine that oceanic has any interest in it. There have been many cases of these things imploding.

We sell 3/4 inch thick acrylic ones to replace the plastic one

DPV Repair, Tekna, Mako,

Cratos:

We sell 3/4 inch thick acrylic ones to replace the plastic one

DPV Repair, Tekna, Mako,

Click to expand...

I'm not sure but I think you sent me one before you posted Maybe after. Going to MD

Thanks,
Jeff
Do you trust the new plate to the rated 55 meters?

yes I do

This explosion stuff (and other) was the genesis for the design of the tech scooter - Gavin, Fatman, Submerge etc. If you are going deep the Mako/Tekna scooters without a lot of mods just won't make it. Some historical info:

http://www.usdct.org/wakulla2-technology-scooters.php

Since we've elected to keep our 3 makos we're upgrading all three with heavier nose plates.

I was impressed with the 3/4" thick acrylic nose plate sold by DPV repair and I've ordered a third to replace the deep rated nose plate we already had on one of our Makos as the DPV repair version is better.

Also, if you have them in wrecks or caves, or use them in FW with 21 Ah batteries, the neoprene sleeve is an almost have to have item. In an overhead it protects the rather fragile o-ring grooves between the nose cone, mid body and lower body of the scooter - which if damaged will cause flooding. And the sleeve adds enough extra buoyancy to get the scooter neutral in FW.