SafetySausage Line Storage

[spog]

Hello,
I've just been on a shopping spree and bought a safety sausage. (PSI Pro Line)

Now, straight from the shop, the sausage is rolled up nice and neat, with the 5m cord wrapped round it. The other end of the line is sewn into the little velcro pouch. This looks lovely and neat, but a little thought shows me that this is going to be a pig to deploy and I'd endup garotting myself while \i try to inflate it.

So what options do I have? Is it that I have to buy a reel, or are there other options? In an ideal world, it would be something that fits inside the pouch (eg wrapping the line round a bit of dowel), but I would prefer to listen to the voices of wisdom

Thanks

spog

 

[HammerNoMore]

My personal preference is a spool:

http://www.diveriteexpress.com/tools/reels.shtml#finger

 

[fdog]

And if you're putting up something while underwater, might as well make it a real sized Surface Marker Bouy like this .

All the best, James

 

[IslandHopper]

Here's how I handle my sausage...

I just roll it up, the wrap the line around it ... the free end of the line has a brass bolt-snap on it. When I wish to deploy it during my 15' safety stop, I just take it out of my pocket and let the snap pull the line off... nice and neat ... no tangles. I have the option of clipping it to my BC if I wish ... though I usually just hold the line. (I also put different marks on the line at 15' and 20' so I have a nice visual reference whilst doing safety stops.)

The cute little nylon/velcro bag that came with it seemed to be more of a pain than it was worth, besides, i like to keep it tucked away in a pocket.

 

[Charlie99]

Spog -- it depends upon what you are trying to accomplish. If you want to be able to send up the sausage while at depth, then you need a reel or a spool with more than 5m of line.

5m is reasonable if you only intend to deploy while at your final stop a "don't run me over" signal to boats before you ascend. For this I simply wind 6m or so of cord around a simple orally inflated sausage. A boltsnap works as a weight to strip the line off the sausage. I've found it works best to roll up the sausage starting with the top section inside, but such that the inflation mouthpiece is inside of the last roll rather than the more normal method of having it on the outside.

As to carrying around "real sized Surface Marker Buoys" -- why have the excess drag and weight of unecessary gear?

 

[IslandHopper]

"real size" ?? ... my marker is 6' tall and rolls up a little smaller than a coke can.

This size is almost a minimum around here, where we use them so that the boat can FIND us at the end of a drift dive in the open ocean... If the boat can't find us, the next stop is th Phillipines several weeks later

 

[spog]

It's mainly for the '"we're over here! You bring the boat to us, I'm too tired to swim to you, besides, I'm paying you for your boat, you do the work!" use.

So, it's just so we can be seen on the surface at the end of the dive. But if I think about it, I like the idea of sending it up first and reducing the chance of my head being scalped by a looney on a jetski.

My worry is that there's 5m of line washing around my body as I inflate the sausage - not a problem?


spog

 

[IslandHopper]

That's where a weight (bolt-snap) on the end of the line comes in handy .... it hangs vertcally in the water so you know where the line is at all times

 

[yak]

That's where a weight (bolt-snap) on the end of the line comes in handy .... it hangs vertcally in the water so you know where the line is at all times

I'll be using a SMB for the first time this weekend.

Do you leave the snap hanging at the bottom of the line until you're all the way to the surface, or do you bring in the slack as you go up (which would be difficult to wind on just a bolt snap).

If the former, I'm assuming that once you're at the surface and your boat is close enough to both see you and to keep other boats away, you would then deflate the sausage and reel in the line around the rolled up smb before proceeding to board?

 

[HammerNoMore]

Do you leave the snap hanging at the bottom of the line until you're all the way to the surface, or do you bring in the slack as you go up (which would be difficult to wind on just a bolt snap).

Yet another reason I prefer a spool.

Check out the Fifth-D video on shooting a bag. It will tell you all you need to know:

http://www.fifthd.com/classinfo/video/sbag.htm
or
http://www.frogkick.dk/multimedia/video/fifthd/shootbag.avi