Deploying/reeling an smb upside down

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yes i can keep my buoyancy that way. but you have a valid point there, although i can see them by turning my head.
but i feel that the risk of entanglement with my camera-strobe setup which is positively buoyant is a far greater danger. i got entangled once while deploying/reeling on the horizontal and i dont want that to happen again.
i guess i have to practice it more to make sure if its a really effective way of deploying my smb

On your previous points; I see no reason you can't do it. As far as getting tangled with your camera, you could clip your camera off shorter or if you ever dive a BP/W then once you start your ascent you can simply clip your camera off on your rear d-ring and it is out of the way. I clip my camera off up front, but have never had a problem with entangling my smb line with it while deploying or after deployment so it never occured to me to even try deploying while upside down.
 
i was totally picturing you doing this fully vertical and inverted especially when i just read the title of the thread.. totally thought you were sayin how awesome it was that you sent it off "upside down" heh heh heh sorry.. :)
 
i was totally picturing you doing this fully vertical and inverted especially when i just read the title of the thread.. totally thought you were sayin how awesome it was that you sent it off "upside down" heh heh heh sorry.. :)

haha yeah it kinda sounds that way :D
 
My bag shooting tends to have hold overs from commercial dives where when a bag went up you wanted to see it as the bag and whatever heavy object was attached to it were always at risk of coming back down if the bag or rigging failed. So vertical launches were common and swiming back a bit in a supine positon was also a good practice. Seeing a 1000 pound object impact the bottom where you would have been had you not swam back a bit will make a believer out of you.

Not much of that translates to technical diving except the preference to be vertical and shoot the bag with everything clearly out in front where you can easily see it. You can do that in horizontal trim but it takes a great deal of care to ensure you do not drift over the top of the bag, line etc, while rigging and shooting it and keeping perfect trim, is, in my opinion not worth the added risk.

If I am shooting a bag in mid water, I am not going to silt anything out breaking trim. If I am on the bottom shooting an upline, the current is no doubt running and I will be in contact with the wreck anyway to tie off the line and maintain position. In either case, there is no downside to a vertical position during the launch. As for seeing where the team is/was/went, a diver can do a 360 a lot faster vertical than horizontal.

It is, in short, not an enterprise where I get hung up on looking cool by maintaining horizontal trim as looking cool is not the priority.

The other related phase where I will break horizontal trim is the final 10' to the surface under the boat. I have seen too many divers with perfect horizontal trim and less than perfect SA, almost get nailed by the props, rudders or ladder of dive boats pitching up and down in 6 ft seas. I keep the boat where I can see it and that often means about a 45 degree trim angle.
 
i was totally picturing you doing this fully vertical and inverted especially when i just read the title of the thread.. totally thought you were sayin how awesome it was that you sent it off "upside down" heh heh heh sorry.. :)


Me too.

On a side note breathing is definitely labored while on your back.
 

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