Our dive team had our monthy training last night at a local lake. We worked on our towing operations. There was a lot of discussion about the application of this type of operation. All the discussion made me wonder if other teams do this type of op and if so what their procedures are for doing this. Please feel free to offer up your experience and suggestions.
For those who are not familiar here is how we do it. Basically we have a bar about 6' long with three handles even spaced on it and a set of ropes that goes up from the end of each bar to the transom of our small inflatables. We used three divers on the bar and did evolutions. It was a night dive and we had about 4 to 6' of vis. Our training went very well with 8 divers working in on the bar. We had a second boat with our safety divers ready to assist if needed. My evolution was perfect. My two other divers had perfect bouyancy and the boat operator had perfect speed. It is probably the most peaceful and relaxing dive I have done in a long time. With the three divers and the vis we had we were getting about 14 to 16' wide search area and we did several passes about 500' long in the 20 minutes we were in the water. For a large body of water and without expensive sonar equipment we were able to effectively search a large area in a relatively short period of time. With the boat speed and bouyancy all perfect we were able to glide over the bottom without silting and very little exertion on the part of the divers.
There was one issue that we will need to resolve. Our current procedures require the divers to wear helmets similar to river diving to protect against running into hazards. Due to my rather large melon, neo hood and AGA mask I could not get a helmet to work. My dive commander allowed me to dive without it. Afterwards I commented that given the speed and vis the helmet seemed unecessary. We will be reviewing our procedures.
Obviously this type of op only has specific applications. First you must have good vis, black water is just too risky. Secondly snag hazzards and heavy vegetation would need to see if this would work. The lake we were in last night was clear and had little to no vegetation.
Thanks for reading and again please feel free to comment.
Mark D.
For those who are not familiar here is how we do it. Basically we have a bar about 6' long with three handles even spaced on it and a set of ropes that goes up from the end of each bar to the transom of our small inflatables. We used three divers on the bar and did evolutions. It was a night dive and we had about 4 to 6' of vis. Our training went very well with 8 divers working in on the bar. We had a second boat with our safety divers ready to assist if needed. My evolution was perfect. My two other divers had perfect bouyancy and the boat operator had perfect speed. It is probably the most peaceful and relaxing dive I have done in a long time. With the three divers and the vis we had we were getting about 14 to 16' wide search area and we did several passes about 500' long in the 20 minutes we were in the water. For a large body of water and without expensive sonar equipment we were able to effectively search a large area in a relatively short period of time. With the boat speed and bouyancy all perfect we were able to glide over the bottom without silting and very little exertion on the part of the divers.
There was one issue that we will need to resolve. Our current procedures require the divers to wear helmets similar to river diving to protect against running into hazards. Due to my rather large melon, neo hood and AGA mask I could not get a helmet to work. My dive commander allowed me to dive without it. Afterwards I commented that given the speed and vis the helmet seemed unecessary. We will be reviewing our procedures.
Obviously this type of op only has specific applications. First you must have good vis, black water is just too risky. Secondly snag hazzards and heavy vegetation would need to see if this would work. The lake we were in last night was clear and had little to no vegetation.
Thanks for reading and again please feel free to comment.
Mark D.
