A guy in Galveston told me my umbilical management was costing me bottom time | Commercial Divers - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
A guy in Galveston told me my umbilical management was costing me bottom time
About 8 months back I was working a dock job down in Galveston and this old timer who ran the chamber told me straight up my hose management was sloppy and it was eating my dive time. I got kinda defensive at first because I've been doing this 11 years, but he pulled me aside after the shift and walked me through how I was letting my umbilical drag across the bottom instead of keeping it floated proper with the right amount of slack. He said 'every extra foot of hose you're fighting is air you're burning and time you're losing' and honestly he was right. Next dive I tried his method of staging my hose in a figure eight off the surface and I picked up almost 4 extra minutes of working time on a 60 foot job. Never really thought about how much drag on the hose adds up over a whole shift until somebody put it in front of me like that. Curious if any of you guys keep a set system for staging your umbilical or do you just play it by feel every time?
So basically some old dude at a chamber in Galveston saved you four minutes of bottom time by telling you your hose looked like spaghetti? Tbh I had almost the exact same thing happen to me years back, except nobody pulled me aside nice about it, they just yelled at me over the comms. Your figure eight deal off the surface works, but the real trick is not letting it spool up when you turn, because that's where the drag adds up fast. Old timers love handing out advice like it's gospel, and half the time it's just stuff their old boss told them. But Ngl, when it comes to hose staging, those guys have usually earned the right to run their mouth.