BCD failure at 100 feet

[drbill]

I had the seam on the internal bladder of my wing fail while on a 160 ft dive off Ship Rock (Catalina) years ago and had to swim up the face of the pinnacle to the surface. Not too difficult, but certainly an eye opener. An SMB would have been a good thing to have for redundancy. I had plenty of gas (main tank and pony) so that wasn't an issue.

Certainly correct that BCDs often don't get the care they deserve. However in 51 years of diving, this is the only real failure I've had (of course 28 years I dove without a BCD). I have had a few incidents where my dump valves were not sealing properly, but the air leakage was not as near-catastrophic as the failed bladder.

 

[Chilly_Dipper]

You don't have control of that entire 6l volume. There's a certain point where you can't exhale anymore, but your lungs aren't empty. And inhaling to the max is a great way to end up with co2 problems.

Balanced rig, as others have said, is the answer to this problem.

Yes that's why I didn't include the extra 4 lbs that would have added up to a full set of lungs.

---------- Post added August 12th, 2013 at 12:11 PM ----------

completely full and burping,

You were over weighted if this is the case.

---------- Post added August 12th, 2013 at 12:16 PM ----------

If that's your rule, then pretty much every cold water diver is over weighted at some point.

Yup no argument there. The point is that you shouldn't be continually over weighted. At the beginning everyone requires more weight BUT that's not an excuse to continue to do so. That would be like never taking the training wheels off your bike.

---------- Post added August 12th, 2013 at 12:18 PM ----------

Yup, opinions are like a-holes, we have at least one.

Yes and I would say it's the person that hurled a veiled insult in the midst of a conversation.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Yup no argument there. The point is that you shouldn't be continually over weighted. At the beginning everyone requires more weight BUT that's not an excuse to continue to do so. That would be like never taking the training wheels off your bike.

Of course divers will drop weight with experience. This does not change the physics that the amount of ballast needed to offset the buoyancy of a thick environmental protection may exceed the ability of the diver to swim it up from max depth without some help (BCD, 2nd bladder, d/s, lift bag, etc...). When you get old, you have the advantage of realizing and admitting your physical limitations. Swimming up 25lbs of lead is at the very edge of mine. If your wise, you find ways to get around these limitations.

---------- Post added August 12th, 2013 at 12:01 PM ----------

Yes and I would say it's the person that hurled a veiled insult in the midst of a conversation.

Put on your big boy pants, this is Scuba Board. Be prepared to defend anything you say. If you want all sweet and goodness there are forums with special rules for you. Not this one.

 

[Chilly_Dipper]

Put on your big boy pants, this is Scuba Board. Be prepared to defend anything you say. If you want all sweet and goodness there are forums with special rules for you. Not this one.

Thanks for proving my point

 

[bj139]

I am in the habit of taking the butt dump cap off my wing to allow it to dry out. On one dive, I descended and when I went butt up I lost buoyancy. Feeling back I remembered the pull dump cap was in my pocket. I finished the dive remembering to keep a shoulder higher than hips position in the water to keep the air in my wing.

In the OP situation, being able to find the anchor line meant that he did not have to leave weights on the bottom. If he had not been able to find the anchor line, leaving the weights would have meant a buoyant ascent once the wetsuit decompressed but preferable to staying on the bottom. I like having weight pockets since weights can be tossed out one by one until the desired result is achieved. When approaching the surface, you could go head down and fin to slow your ascent, maybe even doing an upside down safety stop.

 

[austrooper]

Thanks for the post, the weird thing is last night as I was falling asleep I was thinking what would I do if my BCD failed to hold air. I going to buy a lift bag

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I have been reading through this thread with interest. Years ago, in the 1970s I wrote an article for NAUI NEWS titled "Comments on Buoyancy Control and Emergency Procedures." I also wrote for the Sixth International Conference on Underwater Education a paper on "The Life Vest." In that latter article, I had a drawing about a balancing buoyancy control. Jim Mitchell took my drawings and made them better. So when people here talk about a "balanced kit," I think of balancing in terms of where the various forces are, and not that the person maintains neutral buoyancy. If you cannot maintain neutral buoyancy, you cannot have "buoyancy compensation," which if you look at the term "BC" is where we get that term. To me, balancing buoyancy compensation has to do with being able to maintain your attitude in the water ("attitude" being a motion term, not a behavioral term). It has to do with where the forces down and up are in relationship to the diver's center of gravity. I see many people using BCs who do not grasp this concept, and cannot maintain a horizontal attitude in the water due to these forces.

Concerning this emergency, years ago when as a teenager I was diving in Thetis Island, B.C., we were asked to cut a net off a propeller on a ship. It took us about 20 minutes to cut it off, and when we did we went straight to the bottom (about 35 feet deep there under the docks). My buddy Pierre and I swam that net to the surface, without a BC (they had yet to be invented). The photo below shows that net with Pierre and one of our adult advisors, Bob LaBarr. I was using Duck Feet fins at the time, and cannot remember what Pierre was using, but from the photo I found it appears to be Sportsways Waterlung full-foot fins.

I would also point out that there has been some scientific research on this topic. Here (with some emphasis) is the abstract of the paper on "An evaluation of buoyancy jacket safety in 1000 diving incidents."

There were 154 incidents involving buoyancy jacket use, misuse and malfunction in the first 1,000 incidents reported to the Diving Incident Monitoring Study (DIMS). Forty eight of these incidents involved morbidity. This is 10% of the total morbidity reported in the time period. The buoyancy jacket, or buoyancy compensating device (BCD), incidents included divers being unable to exhaust their BCD, others being unfamiliar with the use and operation of their BCD, confusion between the inflation and deflation mechanisms, spontaneous inflation of the BCD by a poorly maintained or faulty power inflator, failure of inflation mechanisms, leaks from BCDs and inflation hoses, inadequate buoyancy and inflation of the BCD restricting the diver’s respiration. Appropriate preventive strategies include an emphasis on a pre-dive BCD check, increased separation of the deflate and inflate mechanisms, annual servicing and post-dive maintenance of BCDs, an accessible dump valve that will exhaust air at a rate at least equal to that of maximum inflation, an education program to accompany the purchase or hiring of a BCD and an emphasis on buoyancy control in diver training. In particular, trainees should be taught how to achieve buoyancy control without the use of a BCD, how to slow an uncontrolled ascent and to “overlearn” the response of weight belt release in an emergency.

John C. Ratliff, CSP, CIH, MSPH (SeaRat)

 

[drbill]

Very good point. I have to admit I'm pretty rough on all my gear.

I was once on a dive to 200 fsw when I had my BCD bladder burst. I did not carry a second form of buoyancy and had to swim myself back to the surface (plus multiple deep stops). Fortunately I had an HP120 and plenty of air. It did make me see the value of having an SMB or lift bag as backup, especially since I dive solo.

 

[Hatul]

You can pull out your SMB and finger spool. Inflated, these have about 20 lbs of lift. It's a good idea to practice using this to make a blue water ascent.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

It is a long and detailed account and I may have missed something but why did you not drop your lead?

I had a similar incident while diving from a liveaboard in Dry Tortugas. I was hanging to the line doing a safety stop when it happened. I was trying to put air in my wing and realized that the corrugated inflator hose came apart! It was in my hand. I was ready to drop my weight belt but then I asked my dive buddy if he had enough lift to bring it up. He nodded yes. I then gave him my belt and just swam up. In case of a BCD failure, dropping the lead should get you close to neutral. If the failure happens towards the start of the dive with a full tank, then you may be heavy but as you breath through the air supply you should come to neutral. SB ... am I wrong here?