Safety sausage

[jgttrey]

If you want to practice efficiently without a lot of up and down, which can be murder on your ears, find an old SMB and put a (very) small hole in the top. It'll hold gas long enough to to perform normally, but can be hauled back down and the process repeated without you having to go to the surface.

Once you get over the hump, it's just something to "stay current" on.

p.s. Even a full bag will not stand up on its own. You have to hang on it. If it's a 10' bag, you'll have to hang pretty hard -- or you can put enough gas to fill the first 6' and then hang on it. Not quite as hard as you would if it were full, but probably harder than if it were a completely full 6' bag to start with -- if that makes sense. But, that's splitting hairs. The goal is to have enough sticking out to be visible. How much that is depends on conditions.

 

[MikkelBC]

I'll most likely practice in a pool first, so 15' deep. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's probably the best place to practice since it's shallow and makes the repetitive "surface to bottom" easier.

If you have a little bit of extra weight on while practicing in the pool, you will be able to reel down the DSMB from depth while deflating your BCD to compensate for the extra lift. You can deflate the DSMB underwater and repeat your exercise. Do all this while hovering 30 cm from the bottom of the pool and you have yourself a nice, challenging buoyancy control exercise :)

 

[Divingblueberry]

If you have a little bit of extra weight on while practicing in the pool, you will be able to reel down the DSMB from depth while deflating your BCD to compensate for the extra lift. You can deflate the DSMB underwater and repeat your exercise. Do all this while hovering 30 cm from the bottom of the pool and you have yourself a nice, challenging buoyancy control exercise :)

Thanks @MikkelBC

That is exactly what I had in mind. Your suggestions will make it much easier. I may not try the 30 cm hovering challenge at first though ;-)

 

[Snoweman]

If you buy a semi-closed bottom, you can fill it quickly with your octo. No multiple breaths to fill it, or having to go negatively buoyant.

 

[StefinSB]

You can search for others as well, including this one on deploying which is interesting if for no other reason than this person's buoyancy control:

I am not sure that having your finger in the spool is generally a good idea when you deploy it. Holding the spool between thumb and index finger appears safer as you can’t get stuck.

 

[MikkelBC]

Thanks @MikkelBC

That is exactly what I had in mind. Your suggestions will make it much easier. I may not try the 30 cm hovering challenge at first though ;-)

You should definitely aim to be able to do the hover before you complete your DSMB training, though. That is the key to being able to control it in open water too. Additionally, before you even start to retrieve you DSMB from your pocket, make sure you are already in a stable hover. Taking a little extra time to be stable before you start the task makes the task go much more smoothly.

BTW, kudos for your willingness to make the effort to train a skill thoroughly. To me, it is this kind of ambition that distinguishes good divers.

 

[Storker]

You should definitely aim to be able to do the hover before you complete your DSMB training, though.

Anecdote time:

When I took my AOW, I'd recently bought my first sausage. Never tried to shoot it. So I asked the instructor if I could try shooting it on one of the AOW dives. No problem, he said. So I tried. I think it may have been during the PPB dive. After a little while I found myself at the surface without realizing how I'd got there, thoroughly entangled in the line.

That was a brutal lesson.

 

[Landlocked123]

I carry 2 SMB/DSMB's as part of my kit on every dive. I actually designed a custom carrier for one of them. The little yellow one which you can see in my profile pic bunged to my back plate is the smaller of the two. I agree with other posts on here that it depends on the intended use. This smaller yellow SMB is a 6 foot SMB and is orally inflated. Its thinner and hold less air than the other one. It now sits, curled up in a spiral fashion in my custom PVC SMB carrier that is zip tied to my back plate. The purpose of this smaller SMB is to be used at the surface in the event of wing failure. I am able to reach behind me, grab the straps that stick out of the pvc tube and literally in one pull deploy it. Because its spiral wrapped it literally unfolds like a spool and I am able to inflate in. The whole procedure takes 20 seconds. I practice this at the end of some of my dives every week. The larger SMB is 8 feet and is thicker and takes more air. Due to its size its best deployed at depth. I have deployed it as deep as 80 feet. I inflate it using my reg. As someone stated here. Practice over and over. I also recommend some form of cutting tool. I carry 2 cutters. Years ago, while practicing deploying the larger SMB I had the line get caught in my reg and up I went. Had I not had the cutting tool I would have taken a ride to the surface. I was able to cut it very quickly as I watched it take off and head up. It has since never happened to me again but I would never deploy and SMB at depth without some form of cutting tool. With my dive buddies, when someone deploys SMB's at depth the other buddy always takes note of this and is ready to cut the line should entanglement happen.

 

[Rred]

"I guess my point is: if the SMB exists, why don't use it and take advantage of it?"
If you dive someplace like NY, the dive boats usually drop an anchor or hook into a wreck. The usual plan is to go down the line, stay on the wreck, and come back up on the line. Making a sausage into just one more thing that has to be washed, carried, bulks you up and encumbers you. And really, given the usual weak currents and basic abilities to "stay on the wreck"...the sausage buys you nothing.
By contrast a boat dive in FL usually means dropping a string of divers off "here" in possibly 2-3 knots of current, and picking them up "there". More or less. So the sausage is more likely to be needed and useful.
In NY it is practically unheard of for the USCG or anyone else to bring in stray divers left at sea, but in Florida? That happens quite commonly.
Years ago, we could and did get the military surplus (Kilgore?) smoke flares, about the size of 35mm film cans, "just in case". Before "sausage" was anything but a breakfast menu option. The smoke flares don't seem to be made or sold any more. They were certainly more compact!

 

[DogDiver]

I never carry one on any of my cave dives. Lol