What safety spool with gloves?

[nwbobber]

Just ordered the surface signal kit from DAN. Now I need a spool. We are diving in cold water here in Washington state, so I was looking for opinions on what spool to buy. The halcyon with the bigger finger hole looks nice, but is it worth the money? Or is delrin necessary? Maybe a cheap injection molded spool would be fine. I'd appreciate hearing from those of you who have used some different ones.
Thanks, Bob

 

[Scubakevdm]

If you plan on attaching it to the butt D-ring on a backplate, Delrin is nice because they often get squashed by tanks there when you sit back down on the boat. I've never used a spool in cold water so I'll leave that part alone.

 

[nwbobber]

OK that 's how we're using them. Delrin it is. That would be a drag to see a piece of gear get smashed on an outing where you really needed it. Thanks.

 

[brownick]

I ended up buying the Halcyon Defender Cold Water spool and love it. I too was a little hesitant on the price though once I put on a pair of gloves and tried it out, it was the most comfortable to hang on to during deployment. Plus the newer ones have the ability to clip off your double ender to the spool to act as a handle during retrieval if you find that helpful.

 

[fletcher]

Spreel from whatworks.ca

We used it on a rock and roll dive. I needed it in an emergency situation and it performed flawlessly with 5mm kevlar gloves to shoot a bag.

Very nice piece of equipment and the price can't be beaten.

 

[battles2a5]

I squashed both of my whatitworks spreels by keeping them on my butt d-ring. Tore the little reel thingly off the little one and the casing on the big one. That hasn't happened w/ my injection molded spools and I don't treat them any differently. The basic spools work fine for me w/ dry gloves. Once you shoot the bag you barely have to touch the spool as the bag is rising. Actually, you can let go of it and it should hover close to you. The Halcyon spools look nice, but I haven't used one and haven't had the need yet.

 

[NorthWoodsDiver]

I like my dive rite 125' spools for cold water use and I think they are on sale at dive rite express.com right now