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Harold, >After, that long explanation, my question essentially is what do others do >to make sure that they "hit" the wreck dead on on these deep dives? My >"Bruce/Plow" anchor does go down at about a 45� angle and certainly doesn't >drop straight down. > >The only thing I can think of is to do what I did in training in >Hawaii--drop an anchor and chain, like a grappling hook, attached to a bouy >and anchor the boat seperately; what do others do? Of course I could just >repeat my buddies comment: "Let's move to Hawaii where the visability would >have been so good it wouldn't have mattered!"\ > Im my area (Melbourne, Australia - cold water, low viz), we use a system similar to the one described above for Hawaii. We drop a grapple which is fairly heavily weighted and attached to a strong line and buoy as soon as we see the wreck on the depth sounder. This drops almost vertically as the line is light and it is free of the boat. After the line is out, we will wait for the wind/current to start pulling on buoy and then run along the line of pull with the boat and check the wreck location with the depth sounder. This checks that the grapple has hooked. On the dive, the grapple is placed a bit more firmly into the wreck by the first diver down. On return, if it is clear that all the divers are on the way up, the grapple is unhooked to aid recovery, otherwise it is left as is. The grapple will either pull free when we recover the buoy, or if it sticks, the line is attached firmly to the boat. The weight of the boat will then un-bend the prongs of the grapple (the boat does weigh about 10 tons!). The grapple is then re-shaped before the next use. This system is used mostly for no-deco exploration, and I think Curt's suggestion on the use of a line to secure the anchor to the wreck is a good idea for dives where you prefer to be able to find the line. Having a boat free of the line is an advantage in current prone areas if you need to pick up divers who have drifted or been unable to return to the line for some reason. I'm always interested to hear others ways of doing things. Regards, David. ______________________________________________________________________________ David Giddy, Voice: +61 3 9253 6388 Telstra Research Laboratories, Fax: +61 3 9253 6144 P.O. Box 249, Rosebank MDC, 3169, AUSTRALIA Email: d.giddy@tr*.te*.co*.au* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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