Had a chat with an old salvage diver that made me rethink my whole gear setup

Honestly, I ran into a guy at the docks in Norfolk who's been doing salvage for 30 years. He looked at my comms setup and said, 'Kid, you're trusting a $2000 radio to a $50 battery backup. That's like building a house on sand.' He showed me his rig, which has three separate power sources for his comms and hat light. Tbh, I've always just run a single big battery and never had a total failure, but his point about redundancy really hit different. It got me thinking about all the small single points of failure we ignore. How many of you run truly redundant power down there, or is that overkill for most jobs?

4 comments

4 Comments

oliviabutler2mo ago

My uncle did commercial diving for 20 years and always said overcomplicating your rig is its own risk. Adding three power sources means more connections, more points for water ingress, and more stuff to fail or get snagged. For 95% of recreational or even light commercial work, a single, well-maintained, high-quality battery is safer and simpler. That old diver's philosophy is for a very specific, high-risk salvage niche.

white.keith2mo ago

Agree completely. More parts just means more ways to mess up.

logan2712mo ago

Yeah, that "more ways to mess up" line is so true. It's not just about the gear failing, it's about the mental load. Every extra part is another thing to check, another thing to worry about when you're already dealing with cold and low visibility. Keeping it simple means your brain is free to handle the actual dive, not just your equipment.

parker_hall517d ago

oliviabutler said "a single, well-maintained, high-quality battery is safer and simpler" but that's not really the whole story. It is simpler for sure, but safer? Not always. I've seen a single battery setup fail because of a tiny crack in the connector or some corrosion you couldn't even see until you pulled it apart. That old diver wasn't just being paranoid, he was pointing out that when you're 100 feet down in zero viz and your lights go out, having a backup that you can switch to without surfacing is a real safety thing, not just gear envy. The mental load argument is legit though, so maybe the answer is finding a middle ground instead of either extreme. Just my two cents from years of watching guys lose their gear to stupid little failures.