I am looking for advice on performing a Controlled Buoyant Lift.
When training I did one and was told it was too fast. I repeated it and again, too fast. I also got into trouble for finning up during the lift.
I was lifting a girl in the club pool, I was weighted and she was not. As I was inflating her BC, it seemed like it was taking an age to get ME lifted from the bottom - she was beginning to float. I helped myself up by finning and I think a combination of this and the air expanding in her BC caused the lift to happen too quickly.
Does anyone have any advice on how best to perform this safely and correctly?
Thank you in advance!
If you are trying to lift a non-responsive diver that is very heavy....you may very well need to inflate their BC.....HOwever, you should not need or want to inflate BOTH BC's for lift, as that means twice the control issue for dumping air on the way up....
From a perspective, the last thing a good diver wants to do, is to use the BC as an ELEVATOR....It is on you so you can be neutral, so that you can swim upwards....you should not be trained to ascend by BC alone without finning--that is horrifyingly STUPID.
So you need to get the other diver close to neutral, and yourself maybe somewhat negative( so that you wont have a great deal of positive flotation to fight with as both BC's begin to gain more lift on ascent.
I would say the better way to do this, is to keep yourself a bit negative, and try to work her BC more continuously, to keep her as close to neutral as you can....it would be a lot of task loading for you to keep both BC's exactly neutral at all times in the ascent--which would be better still, if you can do this without overload--otherwise, worry more about hers ( and your own you should have much better instant knowledge of for when to dump and how much to dump--so it won't take as much concentration)..;.much of this drill is about how much concentration and peripheral awareness you can maintain..thus my suggestions.
But again...good divers do NOT use their BC's as elevators to ascend. They swim up slowly. You use your BC to get dead neutral--meaning that during ascent, you are dumping a little air every few feet. If you are capable of ascents in a flat horizontal body position, this also makes the air dumping easier to control ascent speed with, as your body is like a wing that holds you against sudden upward movement--if you are head up, this is streamlined for rocketing up.,,When ascending in a flat horizontal, you use the rear or back dump on your BC---and you would need to use the other diver's chest dump( in all liklihood, you wont find it feasible to use their rear dump, and you wont be able to get them horizontal).