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A follow up on the upline discussion of last month:

Last Saturday I was diving on the wreck of the Northern Pacific (a 500 ft ocean
liner in 140 fsw off Maryland).  I got away from the anchor line while  digging
for portholes, and  had to make an ascent on an upline.  Since I don't like
bulky Jersey reels,  I carry a Dive Rite reel with 300 ft of #40 line
(significantly thicker than the standard #24 cave line) and a 50 lb liftbag for
this purpose.  I clipped the bag to  the loop at the end of the line, shot the
bag to the surface, and tied it off on the wreck before starting my ascent.

Now I have practiced this technique a few times, and never had any trouble. This
time, however, the bag seems to have hit the surface and dumped, because I 
found the bag draped over the high side of the wreck.  Not having air to
screw around at this point, I clipped the bag off the line and headed up, 
stopping at 40 fsw for my first stop.  At this point, I clipped the bag back
to the reel, inflated it, and hung beneath the free-floating bag for the next
55 minutes or so.  Luckily, there wasn't too much current, the crew saw my
bag, which has "JH" in huge letters on top, and swam a line out, and I made it
back OK.  The hang was one of the longer hours I have spent, however, and I
endured the derision of fellow passengers for the next day or so (at
least until I saved the butt of another diver who ran out of air with 
25 min of hang time left).

Now aside from the obvious lesson that I shouldn't have pushed my air
and bottom time so far out of brass greed, what is the best way to prevent
a dumped liftbag in the future?  More tension on the line when shooting the bag?
Use even heavier line (go back, dare I say it, to my clunky old sisal-wrapped
Jersey reel)?  I didn't put much air in the bag when sending it up, but a 
little air at 140 becomes a lot at the surface, so too much air in the bag
might have contributed to the problem.

John Heimann

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