Ascent rates

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I was trained and teach to get to the next stop as quickly as safely possible. Especially the 1st one. I tell my students, if you have 25 minutes on the bottom planned, at 25:01 you should already be on your way up the line to the 1st stop. I plan for 30fpm ascents and if the 1st stop 60 feet above is at 27 minutes you should be arriving there before it hits 27 minutes. Not moseying up looking at the flowers.
 
Recommend you try an SMB ascent if you’re having trouble getting to your first stop quickly. We were trained to fill our bags on the wreck by inflating them with exhaust gas from the wing inflator, thereby maintaining neutral buoyancy. As you ascend, you can pay out line to slow yourself down. Release the bag 10-20ft before your first stop and come to a nice clean stop at your first deco stop.
 
Recommend you try an SMB ascent if you’re having trouble getting to your first stop quickly. We were trained to fill our bags on the wreck by inflating them with exhaust gas from the wing inflator, thereby maintaining neutral buoyancy. As you ascend, you can pay out line to slow yourself down. Release the bag 10-20ft before your first stop and come to a nice clean stop at your first deco stop.

Why not release the smb on the bottom and then use a reel to wind yourself back up at a controlled rate?
 
Recommend you try an SMB ascent if you’re having trouble getting to your first stop quickly. We were trained to fill our bags on the wreck by inflating them with exhaust gas from the wing inflator, thereby maintaining neutral buoyancy. As you ascend, you can pay out line to slow yourself down. Release the bag 10-20ft before your first stop and come to a nice clean stop at your first deco stop.

Don't like that.
One of the guys I used to dive with, who was in a different 'deep wreck' group to me. One of his team got a real bad bend doing that when he got dragged up missing stops. I know it was a practice common in his team, he never did it himself, made him very nervous. I only got bits of the story second hand from him.
 
It's not difficult to make an approximate 30 ft/min ascent when drift diving and reeling in your dive flag. My ascents are almost always at about this rate, sometimes a little bit slow especially if I am looking at stuff. Spadefish, Bar Jacks, Creole Wrasse...
 
Why not release the smb on the bottom and then use a reel to wind yourself back up at a controlled rate?
Too slow. You're not going to wind your reel up at 30 ft/min. Also may need a free hand for a gas switch in there.
 
Don't like that.
One of the guys I used to dive with, who was in a different 'deep wreck' group to me. One of his team got a real bad bend doing that when he got dragged up missing stops. I know it was a practice common in his team, he never did it himself, made him very nervous. I only got bits of the story second hand from him.
You can always ditch the spool or reel if it gets jammed. Only way to get dragged to the surface is if you get tangled in the line and can't get it cut in time, no different than shooting any bag from depth. It is a skill worth practicing, it gets you off the bottom quickly and safely to your first stop.
 
Too slow. You're not going to wind your reel up at 30 ft/min. Also may need a free hand for a gas switch in there.

I am curious as to how you have determined the maximum winding rate of a reel. Can you provide some more insight into that conclusion? I don't have any definitive quantitative data myself, but I am pretty sure I can wind in line at 60 fpm if I wanted.

Also, if you are winding up a reel, you should be able to pause the ascent/winding and make a gas switch, so a free hand would be available in that scenario.
 
You can always ditch the spool or reel if it gets jammed. Only way to get dragged to the surface is if you get tangled in the line and can't get it cut in time, no different than shooting any bag from depth. It is a skill worth practicing, it gets you off the bottom quickly and safely to your first stop.

If you shoot a bag from depth and get caught in it... it should be no big deal. The amount of air you need to put in the bag at considerable depth is pretty minimal. If you screw up on release, then just pull it back down and figure it out. There should be no need to cut anything.

Once you release it and the line is flying off the reel, you would have to try pretty hard to get tangled in the line. If the reel gets fouled when it has gained some volume, then you should be mentally prepared to simply release your grip on the reel. Shooting a bag from depth is actually safer than shallow due to the slower expansion rate and decrease initial volume which is required.

I admit that drastic differences in the current velocities between the bottom and the surface do add some (sometimes significant) complexities to the process of shooting the smb from the deep.
 
I am curious as to how you have determined the maximum winding rate of a reel. Can you provide some more insight into that conclusion? I don't have any definitive quantitative data myself, but I am pretty sure I can wind in line at 60 fpm if I wanted.

Also, if you are winding up a reel, you should be able to pause the ascent/winding and make a gas switch, so a free hand would be available in that scenario.
OP stated they were having trouble making the correct ascent rate on their SMB dives. I offered a solution. If you want to wind yourself up the line from the bottom, knock yourself out. Maybe you can go that fast. I don't know and it doesn't affect me. I know I couldn't. Can you stop your ascent to switch gases? I guess, but you're violating the assumptions of your dive plan and adding to your deco obligation. My training was very strict on getting off the bottom quickly and hitting your stops as perfectly as possible.
 
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