Surface rig - travel friendly
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.
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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