How common is a wing failure, and how would you handle it?

[Storker]

your level of caustion is not what most divers take.

I have in fact thumbed a wall dive when one in the team had a moderate BCD dump valve malfunction preventing them from keeping their BCD inflated. We were - as always - diving dry, so the person had an intect source of buoyancy, but since we already were on the backup I felt it prudent to surface, fix the issue and wait for dive #2. I'd do that again in a heartbeat. I've also experienced similar issues on a shallow dive close to land, with a hard bottom at OW cert depth, and I was fine with only one source of buoyancy under those conditions. Just as I'm fine with continuing a dive after a primary light malfunction if it isn't dark.

As DS goes they are not allowed if fear that the user will become inverted and have an uncontrolled surfacing and the boat be liable. Some boats will allow with a cert. Its a case by case thing.

And where is this? So I can avoid going there, I mean. Like everyone else around here, I took my OW in a DS and all my diving around here is dry, so I like to believe that I know how to use a drysuit. Also, IME an inverted ascent isn't a big issue if you're decently weighted, and the biggest risk is a seriously bruised ego I'd be seriously p.o.'d if someone refused to taxi me to a dive site just because I was using my preferred gear.

Purely by accident, I happen to have a DS specialty card since my instructor offered us the card for the registration price as we were issued our OW certs. I thought "why not, it might come in handy one day", but practically no-one else here have one of those. I've seen ops declining to rent out a DS¹ to someone presenting a warm-water cert without documentation of drysuit experience, but any op refusing to allow - or rent - a drysuit to a customer with a nationally issued diving cert would certainly lose business.


¹ Not for fear of litigation, but out of genuine concern about the diver's ability to handle a DS.

 

[lv2dive]

I think the question has mostly been answered but I'm going to my two experiences from 16 years (and a bonus) for some context. Mostly I think it is about remaining calm:
1. An ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure fairly early in my diving career I didn't really understand the concept of checking my gear. I did the predive checks like the good AOW diver I was, but was ignorant of the idea of checking to make sure everything was screwed on well. I had a couple dives where I had minor buoyancy challenges but my buddies didn't notice/bother to tell me I had bubbles coming out of where the elbow screwed into the wing. I figured I was just having some off dives. Until the elbow blew off the wing. Luckily it was towards the end of the dive so I was lighter and could surface. Back on the boat, was able to ID and fix the problem. But it's amazing how much we don't know as immature divers.

2. Sometimes ya just got to figure it out my other experience was hundreds of dives later, after having learned to check my gear pre-dive. With a few hours to go on a cave dive dive, I gently pulled my hip dump valve to release some gas and... Ended up with the valve in my hand- it was a rather strange experience I must admit. I signaled my buddy, showed him the valve (took him a moment to catch on to what I was communicatng ) and we continued the dive. I wanted him to be aware of the situation, but it was really a non-issue. I simply dove out of trim a little and no gas escaped through the gaping hole in my wing.

3. I happen to know someone who had the hose detach from the elbow on a cave dive... They were scootering realized they were losing buoyancy after having gone through some restrictions (so that is obviously where it happened). They calmly signaled their buddy, who came over and reattached the hose. At bit of a pain at 300 feet, to be sure, but things happen and the most important thing is dealing with them in a calm cool and collected manner.

 

[gcarter]

Most boats I have been on do not allow DS's.

And the obvious question, why?

I have never heard of such a thing.

 

[kelemvor]

What's the chances of a dual bladder failure and SMB failure as well.

Went for a dive to 55m, did a bubble check at 5m all OK. Went down to 55m but felt heavy, changed to my backup bladder (dual bladder wing), same result. Managed to swim up to 30m, still felt heavy so during deco I turned upside down to check for leaks (on a whim). Found bubbles leaking from my butt area. Ok leaking bladder, fired off my SMB and was hanging on it at depth, suddenly I began increasing depth. Strange, seems as though my SMB is not fully inflated. On surfacing I found 2 holes in each wing bladder through both walls at the base (neat holes like nail holes), perhaps caused by impalement when loading the gear? Looked at my SMB and found it had a number of wall holes, perhaps from age. So even after the normal checks, things can go wrong. Even though it wasn't a total wing failure, it was food for thought.

Don't ever waste your money on lottery tickets. Maybe spend it on life insurance instead. That's some rotten luck right there!

 

[NAM001]

And the obvious question, why?

I have never heard of such a thing.

The boats do not their passengers to have an uncontrollable ascent. Again it depends on whether the state is a taxi state or not. Its the boat rules and we are stuck with that. I see rules like no doubles dry suits or shell dry suits. some without a certification or none period.

 

[macado]

Most boats I have been on do not allow DS's. One can always debate on how you got in a fix but that discussion has to be done topside cause till you get there it doesn't mater.

I know this has already been quoted but this is INSANE. It just strikes me as extremely odd. A good portion of divers here are in drysuit year round. I've literally never heard of a boat not allowing a drysuit. How exactly do they justify that? What are your water temperatures? Actually water temperatures aside that is still nuts to me that they would set such an arbitrary rule.

I've literally been on boats in Mexico and Florida where people were wearing drysuits.

To add to topic, I've never witnessed a "major" wing failure beyond missing gasket in OPV, leaking corrugated hose and pin hole leaks in bladder. In all those cases the wing was able to trap sufficient air to make it a non-emergency.

 

[Storker]

The boats do not their passengers to have an uncontrollable ascent. Again it depends on whether the state is a taxi state or not. Its the boat rules and we are stuck with that. I see rules like no doubles dry suits or shell dry suits. some without a certification or none period.

Why don't they require their customers to dive tethered to an employee as well? Because runaway ascents isn't much more probable for a drysuit diver than a wetsuit diver. Which other aspects of their costomers' gear do they feel they have to regulate?

And again, where is this? Prospective patrons ought to know, so they can avoid that kind of stupidity

 

[NAM001]

Why don't they require their customers to dive tethered to an employee as well? Because runaway ascents isn't much more probable for a drysuit diver than a wetsuit diver. Which other aspects of their costomers' gear do they feel they have to regulate?

And again, where is this? Prospective patrons ought to know, so they can avoid that kind of stupidity

I think you miss the whole problem with boats. Perticularly the ones that deal with vacation divers. Many boats provide services to the vacationer croud and as such they limit what the divers can do. Drop below 100 ft and you are grounded for the next dive, no doubles, no DPV's no DS's no deco, dive with in your limts of rec warm water single tank diving. Now if you get hooked up with a more professional operation that historically deals with more experienced divers then the limits are much more relaxed if present at all. My flower garden trips was no nitrox no DPV's no dry suits. A recent carribean trip the op was concerned of our use of a BPW's. Well actually death traps as they put it. If I were out of FLA It would not be nearly as big of deal as the local gulf ops are. I am absolutely sure that restrictions are geographically defined. Its hard to justify an unknown diver that presents an OW card renting gear in 80-90f water that they should be in a dry suit.

 

[Storker]

Drop below 100 ft and you are grounded for the next dive, no doubles, no DPV's no DS's no deco,

Do they make the offender wear a dunce cap as well? What about minor offenses, do they have a time-out corner for those? Are you getting spanked if you're really, really naughty?

dive with in your limts.

Well, duh.

For the third time, where is this? You persist in not giving any information, and as a customer I want to know where I shouldn't go. Their boat, their rules. My money, my freedom to avoid them and go somewhere else.

 

[NAM001]

Do they make the offender wear a dunce cap as well? What about minor offenses, do they have a time-out corner for those? Are you getting spanked if you're really, really naughty?


Well, duh.

For the third time, where is this? You persist in not giving any information, and as a customer I want to know where I shouldn't go. Their boat, their rules. My money, my freedom to avoid them and go somewhere else.

Look stroker. I don't keep names in my log when it doesn't pertain to the diving I want to do. I ask and observe and get the explanations. Ill give you that. NOt being able to recite names has no bearing on the validity of the comment.

Again reasons given for such rules have been.

No doubles cause yo can exceed NDl and go into deco. The boat runs one dive plan for all divers they determine the SI's based on the group and not the individual.
No nitrox , Or perhaps better yet all divers will use the same gas for the same above reason
No DS cause of run away ascents.

I dont know the names of the ops but I can say when the fling and spree was out of Freeport TX one such boat was their competitor. Sand dollar out of coz would not allow DS's either. there are many more out there.
The names mean nothing to the conversation. If this was locations like the north west or east or west coast the attitudes to thngs such as DS's are different.