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| Freediving Equipment Freediving equipment discussion. |
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#1
March 8th, 2008
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A few people have asked me about my travel friendly surface rig. Here are a few pics of the unit and an explanation of how to create one in a couple of hours.
Start with a water skiing towable - ski tube. Get the smaller, single person unit and put a hole about the size of a cd in the middle of the floor of it and reinforce the edges with your best efforts (see pics) Glue a rubber pad with contact glue to the area that you will pull the rope across (see pics) when adjusting the depth or pulling the whole lot up at the end of the day. This area takes a bit of punishment and you don’t want to wear a hole in the thing and watch your best rope, gear and rig do a one way dive to the bottom. Create a T shaped bridle with strong clips for attaching to the existing handles on the thing. MAKE IT STRONG as you might be pulling up a diver one day on them. Attach the top of the bridle to the tow point on the front (strong point that wont let go even if the sides do) The centre of the bridle needs a plate with a pulley and a cleat (see pics), so that you can put out the amount of rope you want and cleat it off. Add whatever other attachment lanyards you might want for gear and a portable sounder (see pics) is always helpful to know the depth of water and to track the diver. The whole lot will fit in a sports bag with the pump, sounder and 50m of 12mm sailing rope. My 100m 12mm rope fits easily in the rig when its setup but travels in another bag. Make two of them and with a pole between them you have a counterbalance setup I have dived and traveled with this unit in Australia, Hawaii and New Zealand. It’s fantastic and the last pic is in Hawaii with all the gear including sounder, GPS, 100m of line spare fins etc. I hope this is usefull to you.
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Andy Sydney, Australia "Birds fly, when they get tired they land. Man thinks, when he gets tired he says 'I understand'" - Japanese proverb Last edited by ADR; March 8th, 2008 at 11:03. Reason: pics 
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#2
March 8th, 2008
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...last few pics
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Andy Sydney, Australia "Birds fly, when they get tired they land. Man thinks, when he gets tired he says 'I understand'" - Japanese proverb
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#4
March 8th, 2008
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what battery? jetski one? I think that FF is overkill are'nt you in the water anyways
 ...nice work though
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#5
March 10th, 2008
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Quote:
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Andy Sydney, Australia "Birds fly, when they get tired they land. Man thinks, when he gets tired he says 'I understand'" - Japanese proverb
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#6
March 10th, 2008
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Yeah harden up Andy. Over here we just swim down to check the depth before we start diving
 Last edited by Mullins; March 10th, 2008 at 04:09.
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#8
March 10th, 2008
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aaaaah, I guess he's not a freediver then
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Andy Sydney, Australia "Birds fly, when they get tired they land. Man thinks, when he gets tired he says 'I understand'" - Japanese proverb
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#9
March 10th, 2008
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What I'm referring to is your float. How do you use it? I assumed (I hate that word) that you somehow have it tied on to you, if so that would seem like overkill since you are in the water anyways, hunting right?
What size battery do you feed your FF? a regular marine battery is about 50# up, where do you keep it, on the float?...seems like alot of weight to be carrying around...hence I again assumed it was a jetski battery which are very small. BTW I do freedive up to about 70' and I try to keep my gear as minimal and streamlined as possible, this is just my personal take on it (you know gear is a personal thing)...your set up looks nice and quite innovative, and if it works for you...the proof is in the pudding 
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#10
March 10th, 2008
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Tone - it's for freediving, not spearfishing.
Freedivers need a descent line to follow, to which they are attached by a lanyard. There needs to be quite a lot of buoyancy at the top, both for safety and for doing free immersion. The depth sounder is useful because it lets you check the depth before you put the line down. If you're about to do a 70m CW dive, it's not very practical to swim down to 75m first just to make sure it's all clear. Last edited by Mullins; March 10th, 2008 at 21:29.
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#11
March 10th, 2008
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OK got it...jeez seems when I hear diving I'm auto-registering spearfishing-period...I'm working on it
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#12
April 4th, 2008
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Tone - I made the same ASSumption!
 I guess it's been a while since I went diving without a gun. ADR - The float system looks great! Beats the cr@p out of the boogie board / bungee "system" that I've been using. It looks like a trip to the sporting goods store is in order. BTW, my Wife hates all of you for encouraging my saltwater addictions! 
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Rick "Turn your face to the sun, and all shadows will fall behind you." - C.S. Lewis
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#13
April 16th, 2008
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Hi Andy. Great minds think alike! Seems we had a similar idea. My portable rig is also made using a ski biscuit/donut. The only difference is that I sewed a loop of webbing onto the base of the donut and clipped my pulley (with built in jamcleat like a dinghy mainsheet block) straight on the loop. Rather than getting up on top of the unit and pulling the rope up through the centre I stay in the water, put one foot above the pulley on the webbing and pull the rope horizontally, the system works well as the rope automatically jams in the jamcleat and you can relax between each pull. We have used this setup with 14mm braid and up to 18kg (for FIM) bottom weight. It is hard work to raise but I can retrieve at close to 0.7m/s. Usually 8KG works fine and is easier to retrieve at closer to 1m/s.
In spring we were getting blown halfway across Pupuke so I started anchoring it with a small grapnel and 100m of 8mm nylon line. The suprising thing is how easy it is to swim towing the rig even loaded up with spare fins, anchor, rope, 18kg of weight etc. A variation we used in Taupo earlier this year was to use the float to support one end of a C/W spreader bar with the other end of the spreader bar to the boat. The main issues we have had with the rig so far are: 1. The donut is too big (it is designed for 3 adults) and it is a long way from the line to the edge making it difficult for some people on duckdiving. 2. It drifts really fast on windy days so needs either anchoring or a sea anchor.
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