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In-the-water DRUMS : Photos!

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efattah

Well-Known Member
Mar 2, 2001
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Yesterday (October 26th, 2003), Laminar and I took our newly constructed in-the-water DRUMS for her maiden sail at Sasamat Lake, BC, Canada. It was a night dive (we spent the whole day setting her up). We used the glow-in-the-dark 1/2" descent line for a ghostly maiden voyage.

We christened the DRUMS the 'FSS Golden-Angel'. FSS = Fattah-Scott ship. Golden Angel was chosen because this is a life-saving device, she is your guardian angel. We did several successfully dead-body recovery simulations from 30m, although the reel has a bit too much line on it (300lb line, 125m). The reel is a Penn 50VSW, two speed (1:1 and 3:1), with level drag. The operator floats under the base of the rod, with the rod basically touching the top of his head, as he listens to the 'clicking' noise of the diver peeling the reel during the descent. The rate of clicks gives an instant indication as to the diver's descent speed. We could easily tell when either of us had an equalization or hood-squeeze stop at depth. The platform is so stable it is virtually un-flippable. No amount of pull on the tip of the rod will destabilize the platform.

We believe this is the first in-the-water DRUMS yet made. We know that Sebastien thought of the idea, but to our knowledge his systems are all boat-based.

Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 

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thanks for this Eric & Pete!
i have so many questions i don't know where to begin!...

1. it looks like some sort of fishing rod? is that basically what it is?
2. its the frame collapsable? is it easy to transport in a car? i see the buoys can be deflated.
3. which parts, if any, did you get from Seb?
4. how on earth can you bring someone up at speed by winding that little reel?? (main question)
5. do you intend to dive deep without a descent line to follow?
6. what kind of ascent speeds have you managed so far?
7. if you don't mind me asking... how much did the various bits cost - apart from the line - i already know that's horrendously expensive!
8. what about the harness? or do you use a simple wrist strap?
9. can it be used safely with just 2 people?

ok, that's probably enough questions for now... :)
well done you two for constructing this unit! i'm very interested to hear more about it...
 
Originally posted by Alun
thanks for this Eric & Pete!
i have so many questions i don't know where to begin!...

1. it looks like some sort of fishing rod? is that basically what it is?
2. its the frame collapsable? is it easy to transport in a car? i see the buoys can be deflated.
3. which parts, if any, did you get from Seb?
4. how on earth can you bring someone up at speed by winding that little reel?? (main question)
5. do you intend to dive deep without a descent line to follow?
6. what kind of ascent speeds have you managed so far?
7. if you don't mind me asking... how much did the various bits cost - apart from the line - i already know that's horrendously expensive!
8. what about the harness? or do you use a simple wrist strap?
9. can it be used safely with just 2 people?

ok, that's probably enough questions for now... :)
well done you two for constructing this unit! i'm very interested to hear more about it...

1. It is a Penn 50VSW reel with matching rod. This is a 50lb 'class' reel/rod, made for reeling in 'fighting' fish weighing up to 50lbs. A 50lb fish which 'fights' produces far more force than a dead diver who is 6lbs negative. Remember the diver may 'weigh' 80kg on land, but at depth he is only a few pounds negative.
2. It can be assembled or disassembled in < 5 minutes. The buoys detach and deflate, the rod detaches and collapses, and the frame is specially designed to fit in the back seat of a standard 'sedan' car.
3. No parts were obtained from Seb.
4. The 'tiny' reel is actually freakin huge! You just wind it as fast as you can. And the person comes up from depth. Your arm does get a bit tired.
5. One of the main uses we want to do is inhale or FRC 'recreational' dives without a descent line, at maximum effort, in 40-60m of water, 'looking' for interesting things. We will try to hit the bottom of the Monzimo channel in Tahsis at 60m to look for Gorgonian corals during our Tahsis trip Nov 8-16 (leaving the world behind III) Alternatively, for pure depth, we also plan on using a glow-in-the-dark descent line, with NO lanyard, because we need to stay far from the line to reduce winding around the descent line. The line on the reel is 300lb test monofilament, translucent (not glow in the dark!)
6. At 3:1 gear ratio, we were achieving speeds of around 0.7m/s, although we need to check the data. We hope to get that up to 0.8 - 0.9 m/s once we adjust some settings on the reel. We will do more testing before actually using it as a lifesaving device. I have a new modification idea which uses a counterbalance embedded in the frame for an insanely rapid recovery of 4-5 m/s if needed -- that will be in version 2.0!! Imagine -- the counterweight pulls up ONLY THE DIVER, versus a counterbalance which pulls up the diver and the line and the bottom weight.
7. The frame cost CDN$120 not including the buoys. The buoys were about USD$18 each from diveinn (I think). The reel/rod/and 300lb monofilament line were about USD$1100 (if I remember correctly). You might even consider going to a Penn 80VSW, 80lb class reel which is even bigger and 'badder', and more expensive.
8. Initial tests were done with a simple steel ring, just holding the ring -- we plan on using a simple velcro wrist strap.
9. I believe this DRUMS should be used as follows:
Type 1: Deep recreational dives where the risk is a surface samba/BO: can be used by only 2 people.
Type 2: Very deep dives where the risk is deep blackout from N2/CO2/O2; should have 3 people. If you truly expect a problem to occur at the bottom, then I think 3 people are needed.

In our minds the real wonder is finally being able to do an insanely deep recreational dive (90-100% effort), knowing that your buddy will find you when you surface. Doing full-effort recreational dives makes training way more fun than diving on a line. Further, there is no risk of 'winding around the line' in that case.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Really cool Eric!

Not only are you guys brilliant, you share it with us all as well! I have wondered about using a fishing reel before for a DRUMS.

How are you attaching it to the diver? Is there a harness your wearing?

A couple of things, I believe the 50lbs in the Penn reel/rod setup is actually the line weight the real and rod is designed for. It’s designed to catch much bigger fish by the use of the drag. The drag is usually set so it releases at 1/3 or less of the line weight, so with 50lbs that would be about 16 ½ lbs.

There isn’t any problem using heaver line on the reel for your use, because you’re not going to be using the drag much (your not going to be using for 2 plus hours like in fighting a big fish), and Penn over builds their reels. It’s the drag system that makes the Penn International or other good quality reels cost so much.

Penn is the brand I would use for this because they are the easiest to own in terms of finding parts and working on them yourself. Try to keep it out of the water as much as possible.

The pole is going to bend pretty good if you put 50lbs of force on it. It will probably work well, but a less expensive, very stout pole would work well to. If you ever want to get rid of the pole, you won’t have a problem finding a buyer, because Penn International poles are in high demand.

For the line, I would try a braided line, like Spectra or Kevlar, because big mono has a lot of memory, which means it wants to unwind on the reel causing what is know as backlash, and when it gets loose in the water it will tend to curl up. Just a suggestion, but I think a braided line would work significantly better for your application.

Great Job,
don
 
I totally agree that braided line will work better; and 300lb line is overkill. I want to re-spool with 200lb braided line. Sebastien also uses braided line.

If I max out the drag on the reel, I believe it is set at 26lbs.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Well that looks cool..........wondering if you constructed using polythene piping (drainage piping), elbow and T joins (silicon sealed) it would have enough bouyancy to ditch the floats. Even if it didn't, a lot of the elbow/tee joints are push fit self sealing, so you could transport it as parts to save space and assemble at the site. This would require a design change to properly support the tubing and prevent twist.............just a thought.....

OK - I'll get my coat *ahem* :)
 
The last platform we designed (back in 2000/2001) was made of PVC pipe with elbows etc., and it was a disaster. It broke on the first day!


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Eric,

have you thought about using a larger reel?... similar to what Seb uses. the operator could perhaps be supported in the water by the frame, sitting on an underwater platform with his waist at water level, so that his arms are well clear of the water... this would allow bigger arm movements and a much higher ascent speed. this configuration should be fairly stable in the water, because the diver is not sitting on top of the floats. the tricky part would be making the parts and fitting them together i suppose.

if you're currently managing around 0.7m/s, then how do you deal with the slack when the diver surfaces at normal speed (1.0m/s++?) from a normal dive. is there a risk of entanglement?
is it not critical to be able to reel up at least as fast as the diver can ascend, in order to detect a BO on ascent?

"I have a new modification idea which uses a counterbalance embedded in the frame for an insanely rapid recovery of 4-5 m/s if needed -- that will be in version 2.0!! Imagine -- the counterweight pulls up ONLY THE DIVER, versus a counterbalance which pulls up the diver and the line and the bottom weight."....

the counterweight system that we built only hauls up the diver too. because we dive in a lake our target plate weighs only 1.5kg... that's all we need to keep the line taught. despite the tiny line weight, we still only managed to get an average speed of 1.0m/s when dragging an 'unconcsious' diver from 50m.... using about 23kg of lead as the counterweight. it certainly wasn't as fast as i expected.
we could use more lead, but it would make the system even more difficult to handle and we would need an even larger buoy to support the weight. to get 4-5m/s i think you would need a massive amount of hydrodynamically shaped lead - proabably 50kg or even 100kg? then again, you won't be hauling up a thick rope... which would account for a lot of weight and drag...
 
This is really a good presentation and discussion. These are only my own thoughts, but I think the fishing reel idea is great for the descent, because it’s designed to drop bait with very little drag and give some indication of the speed and depth. The power and speed of pulling the diver up concerns me.

Most bottom fish caught in over 60 meters of water will bloat (bladder expands) once they are pulled up 30 meters. At that point they feel like dead weight with no indication there is something alive on your line. Actually there is some positive buoyant at this point. Sometimes an over jealous angler will break the line by trying to pull them up too quickly and the fish will float up in a few minutes.

Even though the fish is not fighting, it is being dragged mostly straight up, and even though it’s a little positively buoyant, it can still take several minutes to bring up. The other issue about power is the fishing reel is not made to crank a lot of weight by just turning the handle. When ever you pulling a big fish, you have to use the rod to pull up and then crank the reel while lowering the rod. I am afraid that with just the turning of the short lever on the reel, you won’t have much power. Eric how did it work with your simulated diver recovery?

I think the attachment of the retrieval line would be very important. The more it can be attached toward the top of the person, the more hydrodynamic the pull will be. Alun’s idea of getting the spotter clear of the water so he could take larger hand strokes is a good one. The only draw back is once the spotter gets out of the water, he loses his ability to see what the diver is doing.

I think a commercial fishing bottom reel (frequently called bandit gear) might have some advantages to a recreational reel. They are designed to retrieve heavy fish fast. They use several hooks on one line so the weight of their catch can get large, and they want to retrieve as fast as they can, because time is money to them. They get criticized for this, because the ultra fast retrieval kills a lot of undersize fish that would have lived with recreational gear.

Commercial fisherman don’t use the internet much so there isn’t much on the internet, but here is one link to supplier that sells it http://www.blueoceantackle.com/bottom_reels.htm You can get these reel/pole combination in manual with a big crank arm or electric or hydraulic. For in-the-water system, manual is probably the only thing practical, unless you want to lug around a 12-volt battery. I guess a 12-volt battery wouldn’t be impossible, but another problem would be controlling the retrieval speed on a normal ascent. The nice thing would be if you could seal up a remote control and the spotter could use it while in the water watching the diver.

The only reel they list the retrieval speed on the web page is the Waterman Industries 12 volt at 350 feet per minute. This would be 1.79 m/s.

The 1 m/s retrieval speed of Alun’s counter weight system retrieval seems disappointing with using a good amount (23kg) of weight. Like he said, maybe with a real hydrodynamic shaped weight and smaller line it would improve.

Also, how do you keep a counter weight from hitting the diver? It looks like that with just a 1 ½ meter spread from the retrieval line and the counter weight, a current or just the non straight pull of an unconscious diver could cause the diver to get under the drop of the counter weight. Ouch!
don
 
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it's hard to say how much difference the rope makes. if we replaced our rope with monofilament (as Eric is planning to do - from what i can tell) then that could perhaps add an extra 1m/s+ to the ascent speed - who knows - it's hard to tell...

in our case, we dive in a lake so there are no currents to worry about. the two pulleys are seprarated by a 2m long stainless steel bar (H cross section - actually 2 x U shaped bolted together. they are nothing more than bars used to hold up shelves -bought from a DIY store for next to nothing). i personally did the trial run from 50 and passed the weights at 25m... they seemed like a mile away - there's no problem. it may be a different story in the sea though...
 
Several points:

In our system, although the operator is in the water, his arm is out of the water, and he can spin the reel as fast as his arm can move (like a blur).

When the diver is ascending, we can probably pull the line in at 1.5m/s because we can spin the reel at a blur. Maybe even faster.

Only when the diver goes dead does the speed slow to 0.7m/s.

It would be nice to be able to use the standard fishing method of pulling the rod, and then reeling the slack, but that obviously isn't practical with this sort of platform.

Anyway, first thing I want to do is re-spool the reel with 200lb braided nylon line, and then we'll do more tests and publish the numbers.

The idea of using a different reel may be a good one, but with the tremendous cost of these reels, I have no money to buy anything else at this point. If the system works acceptably well, we'll use it for now.

Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Eric,
I hope it works well for you, but if it doesn’t remember there is always e-bay. I have seen some Penn equipment go for almost new price there.

0.7 m/s is still a good improvement over scuba or freediving and if you can do 1.5 m/s without a load, you can definitely keep the slack out on the ascent.
don
 
ah, 1.5m/s without load... that's good. well, it sounds like you have a pretty good working prototype there.

please keep us updated on how things go - thanks!
 
Here is an update on the GoldenAngel in-the-water DRUMS.

We did the 2nd test today at Ansell Point.

We respooled the reel with 'proline' spectra fiber braided line, which is incredibly thin -- 200lb line is as thick as 50lb monofilament, and it has no memory.

This line made major improvements. The line is so thin that the effective gear ratio remains constant throughout the dive. The old 300lb monofilament was so thick that the amount of line brought in on each revolution of the reel varied by a factor of 2, depending on how deep the diver was (and thus how empty the spool was). This new line is so thin that the reel is nearly 'empty' the whole time.

We did repeated retrievals from 30m, with dramatic results. Laminar managed to retrieve me from 30m in 32 seconds, with 11 seconds from 30m to 20m (0.91m/s), 11 seconds from 20m to 10m (0.91m/s), and 10 seconds from 10m to 0m (1.00m/s). After this retrieval his arm was quite tired. We believe that for a deep retrieval, you need two operators to alternate the pulling.

I retrieved Laminar from 30m, in a bit slower -- 36 seconds, because my arm got quite tired in the last 10m. However, I retrieved him from 20m in only 19 seconds (1.05m/s), because my arm did not get tired pulling him from only 20m.

As a side note, we were wearing extra weight so we could sink at 15m, and reach a similar 'negative buoyancy' at 30m as we would at 60m+ on a normal dive.

So, from 30m to 20m, the diver was about as heavy as he would be on a deep dive, and yet we still managed an astonishing retrieval rate of 0.91m/s, although the operator cannot maintain that rate indefinitely without help from a 2nd operator.

We also found that when the diver was actively ascending (swimming up), we could reel up the slack faster than he could ascend, even if he sprinted. This just confirmed earlier results.

However, we were using the reel at 3:1 gear ratio, and we believe the system would work even BETTER with a 6:1 ratio. I believe there is a kit we can get to modify the Penn 50VSW for 6:1 gear ratio.

Anyway, it was a dramatically successful test. The next test will be a dead man recovery from 100m by using a garbage bag filled with 80kg of H2O to simulate a dead diver.

We found an even faster way to assemble it and disassemble it, and we also found a very easy way to carry it down the sleep, rocky slope at Ansell Point. When fully assembled, it easily fits over your shoulder and you can support it with only one hand.

In the water it has almost no drag and while swimming out with a line connecting my belt to the DRUMS, I noticed almost no resistance while swimming it out.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
That Penn Reel is what most of us big game anglers use to catch medium sized marlin and large tunas. There are only 2 bigger reels in the penn lineup, the 80w and 130. It should do well for what you need and if not let me know...I could always use another trolling setup.
 
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