What do you use for a float?

[island_sands]

We are making a few investments in gear over here

Need your valuable input.... what do you use for a float? What do you recommend to use? In principal, it's for shallow water diving (up to 12m).
http://www.picassoamerica.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=52

Please post your pictures of your float systems - I need some real input here. In Cayman my mate had a simple boogie board system which we attached to a mooring ball. It was quite effective.

 

[crusty]

Hi Sands

The only thing i use a float for around here is to string fish off, most of the time we just chuck the fish in the boat, so i dont have to use them much but the are good for bleeding fish on.

I personaly dont like them, the cord allways get tangeled on something and they are a pain do drag around.

If you have to use one i would go for one as stream line as possable.

We may be going after some Dog tooth tuna this year so i have to get a boogie board or a few big floats with some bunge line myself
That Tommy Botha Tunny Busta rig looks like the go http://www.superfrog.bur.st/products.php?offset=0&category=16&brand=Botha and De Kock

But you may have opened another can of worms Remember different floats for different folks or whatever floats your boat

Crusty

 

[island_sands]

hehehe
Well the float is for just freediving and not spearing, ideally we would anchor it somehow and use to rest and breathe up. The link you sent, that's mega float! rofl

i like the one from Rob Allen's website - nice piece of home crafting.

Hi Sands

The only thing i use a float for around here is to string fish off, most of the time we just chuck the fish in the boat, so i dont have to use them much but the are good for bleeding fish on.

I personaly dont like them, the cord allways get tangeled on something and they are a pain do drag around.

If you have to use one i would go for one as stream line as possable.

We may be going after some Dog tooth tuna this year so i have to get a boogie board or a few big floats with some bunge line myself
That Tommy Botha Tunny Busta rig looks like the go http://www.superfrog.bur.st/products.php?offset=0&category=16&brand=Botha and De Kock

But you may have opened another can of worms Remember different floats for different folks or whatever floats your boat

Crusty

 

[jimdoe2you]

Wow, have I got the perfect float for you to use!!!! I will snap a picture of it in a couple of hours and post it. In the mean time here is a photo from the internet. It resembles a little inflatable boat, but is only a meter wide and about a meter and a half long.

It's perfect in case someone wants to rest for a few minutes because it is like a lounge chair to lay in, and best of all it has numerous pockets for things like drinks and keys.



P.S. It is called the Sevylor Reef Explorer, can be pulled by a boat but only at very slow speeds, and has a window for viewing down to the bottom!

 

[jimdoe2you]

OK Sara, here it is (the things I do for you)!!!

1. Picture with shoes do give you some scale.
2. Picture with foot to show off my pedicure hygiene.
3. Picture of bottom ring for hang line or hanging strobe.
4. Picture of side harness that is perfect for those of us with spearguns.

I can't possibly recommend this float enough. It is great!

Jim

 

[spaghetti]

small world Sands: by chance i use the same best divers' buoy. It's made in my mother's home town Brescia, north of italy. Not very interesting, i know, but when i saw the pic my heart started beating fast.
My advice: inflatable floats better than solid ones. For instance, a buddy of mine uses the solid non-inflatable Seatec nautilus, beautiful and very well-working in water. But outside water it's very unhandy to carry around: you nearly need a kart for it (or a caddy, or patience and strong arms).

 

[cdavis]

A very timely thread. I'm headed for Little Cayman and will be needing a float with the lowests possible drag for use on long swims out to the reef. Inflatable is probably better, but I'm open to ideas. Hope to see some good ideas here.

Connor

 

[island_sands]

A very timely thread. I'm headed for Little Cayman and will be needing a float with the lowests possible drag for use on long swims out to the reef. Inflatable is probably better, but I'm open to ideas. Hope to see some good ideas here.

Connor

are you really?????? grrr i am jealous. i met up with some friends last night who, like me, lived in Grand Cayman some time back. i went to the Brac while i was there but never made it to Little Cayman. Cayman = world class freediving conditions.
nice one, when are you off?

Spaghetti, thanks for that input. it's hard to visualise the size of things just by a photograph. coincidental it's made in your home town!!! rofl


Jim!!! nice one. thanks dude. Dig the pedicure hygiene - beats mine! :yack
just going to do a websearch on it now...

 

[Donna]

I use something very similar to Jim, but mine is round. Its designed to be one of those donut things that you tow behind a boat whilst sitting in the middle, but works well as a float - can easily have 4 people hanging onto the ropes around the outside and the bit in the middle is handy for snorkels etc etc.

Can't post a pic as I haven't got one!

Donna

 

[cdavis]

Hi Sands,

Plans are still forming up for Little Cayman, looks like the last week in May, after cold fronts and before hurricanes. This will be a new thing for me; most of my diving has been in the Bahamas or Florida. Looking forward to it. Vertical walls that start at 20 ft sound too good to be true.

May you get a chance to get back soon.

Connor

 

[island_sands]

Hi Sands,

Plans are still forming up for Little Cayman, looks like the last week in May, after cold fronts and before hurricanes. This will be a new thing for me; most of my diving has been in the Bahamas or Florida. Looking forward to it. Vertical walls that start at 20 ft sound too good to be true.

May you get a chance to get back soon.

Connor

yeah 20ft to about 4000ft...

and with the visibility, makes it very difficult not to keep going down...

 

[Absolute]

I like the regular divers float but eventualy the canvas around the tube starts to go so I am leaning twards the boat fender inside the tube trick.

This has been used before, I think on a few of Martin S. world record vids you can see this set up. Looks like a big orange ball on top of a regular tube.

Basically it is on of those taylor made round boat fenders. Looks like one of those bouncy toys that kids sit on and hop around. It has a heavy duty eye on one end to tie the line to. Just put the tube under the ball with the attachment eye of the ball going down then tie on the line. The tube gives you something to hold on to while breathing up or recovering and the boat fender supplies all the load. Cheap and durable though not as portable as the cute blue thing above .

 

[immerlustig]

greetings,

i use this setup here for 2 years already. very rugged design (comparable to a boat fender), bright safety colors and cheap. the air ring gives added buoyancy and extra surface area, so during pull-ups the whole float can't be pulled down at all. on the carabiner i attach the line, etc.

i'm very pleased with that thing.

roland

 

[Jon]

Connor,

I have a few different floats.

The first one I bought was a cheapie Sporasub torpedo float which I end up using more than anything else because it packs so small and I can strap all kinds of things to it. It cost me $10 on the Deeper blue store.

The second one I bought was a Rob Allen foam filled float since I was worried about the Sporasub popping, which it never has. It is a nice little float, but barely has any bouyancy to it at all for strapping stuff onto. It does have a built in flag and is weighted to stay upright. Still, it sits in my basement most of the time unless I am brigning along another new spearo who can use it while we dive.

Third float I bought was a fancy OMER America torpedo float. This thing is big with lots of bouyancy and has a built in flag as well as pockets for ballast weight and water bottles. It even has places to strap in a couple of guns and a really nice inflate/deflate system. It is pretty big and I don't end up using it that much as a result- would be better for the Ocean.

I also have a couple of other floats- inner tube style with float covers and s. steel D-rings sewn in to them. I use these for my counter balance retreival system, but not much else as a big round tube isn't that much fun to pull through the water.

Tedski told me he was going with you down to Little Cayman, lucky b@st@rd, so I can give him one of my floats to take down with and you can try it out. I would reccomend the OMER since there will be a couple of you and you could attach a line to it as well as a bunch of water/gatorade bottles.

I find that torpedo floats are the easiest to pull around when I dive, but if I am out for a long time, or think that I am going to scrounge up a bunch of anchors, I like to tow my smaller dive kayak (OK Scrambler) as it cuts through the water better than a tube float and I can always paddle it back to shore if tired- plus, it can carry a LOT of stuff.

Jon

 

[naiad]

I saw this page on the OMER website, I don't know anything about floats but it shows quite a few...
http://www.omersub.com/catalog/buoys/index.htm

Lucia

 

[Absolute]

greetings,

i use this setup here for 2 years already. very rugged design (comparable to a boat fender), bright safety colors and cheap. the air ring gives added buoyancy and extra surface area, so during pull-ups the whole float can't be pulled down at all. on the carabiner i attach the line, etc.

i'm very pleased with that thing.

roland

Very Cool Roland. This is exactly the same system I was talking about.

But you get the cool points for the Nemo float.
If my wife saw that she would absolutly wet her suit!

Jay

 

[cdavis]

Thanks naiad and Jon. The pics really help.

Jon, if you are going to lend Ted the float, does the kid come with it?? She looks like a serious diver, might like Cayman.
Going back to floats. Given the distance we are planning, would a buggy board be a lower drag alternative? I have a relatively small, cheap one that should go on the plane ok.

Thanks,

Connor

 

[flyboy748]

95% of the time I use a boogie board float... only have a couple of (very bad) pics of it though. It's got a 1 gallon (4 litre) pail on top that I can stuff things into, and is also the attach point for the flag. It's 48" long, and goes through the water easier than any other float I've ever tried. There is a carabiner on the bottom (secured by a nylon weightbelt around the whole board) to hang anchor/downlines from. The spool has 30m of rope, and is homemade. The downside is that it dosn't travel well. It's fine in the car, but I've never taken it anywhere in the plane. In the plane I use an OMER torpedo float similar to Jon's Spora float. Small, inflatable and very convenient.

I also built a big dive platform (4'x8') that is fantastic... but too big to use regulaurly. I built it with two divers in mind, but last time we had it out on a club dive, it had 5 on board for most of the time, all with no problems. It's so stable that one person can easily sit on any edge without it tipping, and the deck is only 4-5 inches above the waterline, making it VERY easy to climb up on out of the water. *edit* This float was designed to support a counterbalance system, which it will do quite well.

Pics attached...
The distance pics of the boogie float are from at least 200m. Flag seems to be visible enough.
The bag on the big float is my 80m (12mm thick) diveline... haven't come up with a convenient way of storing/transporting it yet.

 

[cdavis]

Flyboy, thanks for the pics. Yours sounds like what I have in mind. I have a small, 32 in, boggie board that can be rerigged as a float, putting the towing attachment under the board and a series of bungie cords across the top, maybe with a net under them to hold drop line, water, sunglasses, flip flops, etc for two. Given your experiance, do you see any problems with my setup or have any suggestions?
When you tow yours, do you use a tow line (how long? ) or just the leash that comes with the board? Attached to your leg or arm?

Connor

 

[Jon]

Connor,

When I tow mine I use a D-ring threaded into one of the weights on my belt. I use a snap-clip on the float line, no suicide gate clips on anything attached to me, which I can clip and unclip anytime I want. I aim to have the D-ring in the middle of my back for faster swimming.

Jon