Home improvement store clips vs bolt snaps

[blac86]

Brass tends to produce pretty sharp edges over time. I've got one (which I no longer use) that is similar to two razor blades below the button.

I have one brass double ender that's never gone sharp, but all the other ones I used have. I don't know if a lucked out with this one clip or what, but it's been through 200+ hard saltwater dives and it hasn't sharpened up at all.

 

[Kharon]

Like monofilament fishing line? Everyone should have a cutting tool, but not everyone does. And it isn't always easy to get to the entanglement or the line.

A cutting tool should be in everyone's kit. I dive a lot in cold low-vis water where there is a ton of fishing going on. I have never gotten tangled in mono, braided, or any kind of fishing line. When it gets broken off because of a snag, etc. the line sinks and lays on the bottom. You would have to roll on the bottom to get tangled and first you would have to find someplace where there was line to begin with. There just isn't much of it down there.

All this doom & gloom, hypothetical, extremely low probability stuff makes me cringe. Someone decided, with no empirical evidence, just their own "logic", that something is dangerous and loe and behold - it becomes holy truth.

 

[diversteve]

So this is posted in the New Divers area and no one has really explained exactly why they are called suicide clips. Until the second page and someone posted some pictures, I had zero idea what anyone was talking about. As a recreational diver, how does this kill me exactly? Also aren't they used on Jon lines? Why are bolt snaps/locking carabiners considered superior? The locking carabiner I think I understand since they lock, the clip part can't accidentally open, but for bolt snaps isn't pushing the little handle thing just as likely easy?

Rich did - post #8 in this thread. I believe that was a contributing factor to the death of the Rouses on the U-Boat - The Last Dive

Home Depot sells a line of bolt-snaps that are plated so don't rust/corroded - the springs/locking mechanism either. They're the duller finish silver ones. Had one on my housing lanyard for over a decade now (same one) and it still works fine. Another source is Tech Diving Ltd. - Clips, Snaps, Rings

 

[FinnMom]

If I can use a bolt scap with nylon undergloves, woll glove liners and 1/8cm plastic drygloves (and I can), any normal person can use bolt snaps too.

Caribiners can also create a Godawful mess if you stuff is stored in a pile somewhere. It's Murphey's law: if it can annoy you by hooking onto something, sometime between eventually and constantly it will.

I think the Doria diver who died clipped onto a cable by one of those was Billy Deans. (I Didn't look it up! If I'm right I want a pie piece for sports trivia . The diver who had one hideously tangled into loose line (made a nice 1/2 haybale-sized mess of gloves, hoods, long underwear, etc) was yours truely.

It doesn't need to matter whether you should use "suicide clips" or not. A stainless steel bolt snap will last longer than a standard caribiner; the cheap ones don't just rust, they also break. Buy the SS boltsnap because it's a better value.

 

[dmaziuk]

A cutting tool should be in everyone's kit. I dive a lot in cold low-vis water where there is a ton of fishing going on. I have never gotten tangled in mono, braided, or any kind of fishing line. When it gets broken off because of a snag, etc. the line sinks and lays on the bottom.

I helped DMs pick up garbage from the bottom enough times to know that a cutting tool that works for the above is trauma shears and perhaps the trilo/belt cutter. A BFK is not a cutting tool you are looking for.

 

[azstinger11]

I guess saying something is a hazard diving the Doria doesn't isn't something I can relate too as a recreational diver. It just seems like doing a technical wreck penetration dive, sure there are about 100 million things that can entangle you/foul the water/go wrong in general/etc. If you said just about anything was a hazard/concern diving the Doria, I'd tend to believe you, it's just an inherently riskier activity. As just a normal AOW diver, doing "wreck" dives where I swim along the outsides and not into anything with an overhead, I don't equate the dangers to be that similar. I've seen fishing line on the wrecks I've dove but never in a place that would a danger to someone on non tech dive. The most tangle happy place I've ever been in was kelp patches off the California cost, and I guess I could see the argument there.

 

[Bob DBF]

All this doom & gloom, hypothetical, extremely low probability stuff makes me cringe. Someone decided, with no empirical evidence, just their own "logic", that something is dangerous and loe and behold - it becomes holy truth.

If it never affects you, then it is not a problem. Just being careful and observant one can avoid most, if not all, entanglement.

The problem is when one gets tangled one has to know how to not make it worse and have the tools, knowledge, skill, and ability to cut themselves free or disentangle themselves. The first time is the worse. Buddy diving can be an advantage, if this happens.

I did get caught in an illegal longline for rockfish while solo diving off the coast, it was poor viz and my wetsuit was hooked in several places and the line was caught in kelp before I realized I was snagged. It took a while to cut myself free without much further entanglement, the hooks I took out back on the beach. Without prior experience it could have been much worse. I started carrying a line cutter, as well as my BFK, after that.

I was taught back when diving was dangerous, and I contend that it still can be when things go badly.


Bob
--------------------
It's all hypothetical, untill it happens to you.

 

[azstinger11]

If it never affects you, then it is not a problem. Just being careful and observant one can avoid most, if not all, entanglement.

The problem is when one gets tangled one has to know how to not make it worse and have the tools, knowledge, skill, and ability to cut themselves free or disentangle themselves. The first time is the worse. Buddy diving can be an advantage, if this happens.

I did get caught in an illegal longline for rockfish while solo diving off the coast, it was poor viz and my wetsuit was hooked in several places and the line was caught in kelp before I realized I was snagged. It took a while to cut myself free without much further entanglement, the hooks I took out back on the beach. Without prior experience it could have been much worse. I started carrying a line cutter, as well as my BFK, after that.

I was taught back when diving was dangerous, and I contend that it still can be when things go badly.


Bob
--------------------
It's all hypothetical, untill it happens to you.

Good answer! When I was doing some kelp diving the boat let anyone who was doing a kelp dive for the first time go into the water with snorkels for a demo of how to get out of kelp tangles. You can hack and slash at them with cutting devices, but usually it you bend them into a tight U shape they snap really easily. As a young (read: stupid, too much testosterone, etc) diver I of course got tangled up. While I did have a BFK (replaced now by emt shears and a line cutter) it was knowing all I had to do was snap the kelp and I was free. Of course my insta-buddy didn't realize I was gone tell after I well out of the kelp entanglement.

So you actually got hooked ??? That doesn't sound pleasant at all! I remember reading John Mattera's account of getting hooked in Pirate Hunters and that just sounds horrifying.

 

[kelemvor]

So this is posted in the New Divers area and no one has really explained exactly why they are called suicide clips. Until the second page and someone posted some pictures, I had zero idea what anyone was talking about. As a recreational diver, how does this kill me exactly?

They don't kill recreational divers.

Someone coined the term after a person doing a very advanced technical dive got accidentally clipped onto something and it resulted in death. As I mentioned, the term "suicide clip" is pretty much unique to scubaboard.com and maybe a few select individuals outside of the site use it. Everyone else calls them by their proper name; carbiners.

 

[KevinNM]

They don't kill recreational divers.

Someone coined the term after a person doing a very advanced technical dive got accidentally clipped onto something and it resulted in death. As I mentioned, the term "suicide clip" is pretty much unique to scubaboard.com and maybe a few select individuals outside of the site use it. Everyone else calls them by their proper name; carbiners.

What actually killed him were not carbiners, they were what seem to be most commonly called lever snaps. He had a tool belt with a bunch of them and multiple hooks got wires hooked in them. Then as he tried to release himself more got hooked. They look something like the picture linked to below.

240 1 1/2" Natural Brass, Swivel Lever Snap, Solid Brass-LL