Lift bag question....

[Louma]

If you do not have the skills and intuition about how to attack this problem based on prior training and expereince, I would suggest that you avoid this recovery dive. Using lift bags in 100 feet is not a trivial matter. Even swimming down with a rope, tieing it off and having someone haul it to the surface from a boat presents some potential problems.

Ditto!

 

[Orlando Eric]

Some points--

Lift bags are in fact a little tricky to screw around with believe it or not.

A motor that was been down in salt any length of time is scrap now.

There is a good chance someone on here would be willing to dive with you and has salvage experience if you ask.

 

[Web Monkey]

Some points--

Lift bags are in fact a little tricky to screw around with believe it or not.

A motor that was been down in salt any length of time is scrap now.

There is a good chance someone on here would be willing to dive with you and has salvage experience if you ask.

The OP is in Upstate NY, which means it's freshwater, probably Ontario, the St. Lawrence or one of the Finger Lakes.

Aside from anything else, the water is right around 33 degrees right now and a 100' working dive isn't really attractive for a flooded motor.

Once things warm up, there are all sorts of qualified people that would be happy to come out and help.

Terry

 

[Steve50]

I suggest you consider assisting someone who can answer your question.

 

[Guba]

I've done this, but in the reverse order...we used a rope, but carried the line down on a large reel, tied to the motor, then paid out the line on the way up. That way, the divers controlled the line and minimized entanglement (not having to tow loose line from the surface). Once onboard the boat, we simply hauled the motor up (but it was only from about sixty feet). And there were three of us...two divers and one boat tender.

 

[Tim GGD]

if your asking for advise ,this means you don't know what your doing & can get yourself hurt as well as others.I agree that if the motor has been the water for a while, it's junk & not worth the time & effort

 

[Belmont]

jsado, can you tell us more.

Indeed, a lift bag is tricky to use, unless you know what to expect it can be like holding a lion by the tail. :shocked2:

 

[jsado]

I generally dive with a buddy who is aow with 200+ dives with salvage experience.... Haven't talked to him about it yet though. The motor is scrap. It's located in freshwater, pike lake ontario. It would only be brought up for the experience of doing so....

 

[fdog]

Oh, for pete's sake.

If someone has the skillz to dive safely in those waters, and to that depth, then I'm not seeing the need to make this sound like something you need a specialty class for.

Lifting a small motor with the appropriate tool (a lift bag) is not a big deal. Sheesh. Attach to motor, add air slowly until it almost lifts off the bottom, swim with bag. Vent air every 5-10 feet of ascent.

Yawn.

There's lots of stuff we do, just to do them and gain the experience. This sounds like one of those things, and more benign than most.


All the best, James

 

[Web Monkey]

Oh, for pete's sake.

If someone has the skillz to dive safely in those waters, and to that depth, then I'm not seeing the need to make this sound like something you need a specialty class for.

FWIW, there is a specialty class for search and recovery and it's quite excellent. We learned how to safely raise anything from a lost anchor to an SUV.

There are a number of non-obvious ways to get hurt including getting you or your equipment tangled in the line causing a fast ride from 100' to the surface, losing control of the bag, sending the motor flying up to the surface where the knot lets loose dropping it down on top of the diver(s), having the current pick up leaving you with a bag and motor moving on down the lake, and all sorts of other stuff.

It's not rocket science, but like most things in diving, doing it safely involves a little more knowledge, a little fineese and slightly different techniques than are obvious initially. You wouldn't beleive the CF our class' first attempt to raise an anchor caused. In mere seconds the entire area was silted out and nobody could see anything.

OTOH, a 5HP motor weighs about 50 pounds (according to a Google search), which isn't much more than a lot of weight-belts. That's small enough that all it would take is tying on a line and hauling it up from the surface from the boat, just like an anchor.

Terry