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PSA: a dive sup in Galveston made me redo my bailout calc after 6 yrs of doing it my way
Was doing a routine pier inspection job in Galveston 3 weeks ago and the dive sup asked to see my bailout math before we splashed. I'd been running the same rough 1.5x rule of thumb on my 40 cf pony for 6 yrs and figured it was close enough. He pointed out my working pressure assumptions were off since I never factored in the 90 ft depth plus the 3 min deco I'd actually need on the way up. We sat down with the tables right there and reworked it, came out to needing a 2.2x factor instead of 1.5 for that depth and burn rate. Been redoing every job's numbers from scratch now and already caught my old shortcut undersizing bailout on two other dives. Curious what safety factor you all run on your bailout bottles, and do you do the math fresh for every depth or keep a cheat sheet?
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nina_sullivan6125d ago
Wait, so you changed your whole system because one dive sup made you redo some numbers on a pier job that went fine for 6 years? I get that bailout math matters, but a 1.5x rule on a 40 pony is already pretty generous for most shallow work, and pier inspections in Galveston are what, 30 to 40 ft on a bad day? The 90 ft with deco thing sounds like a whole different kind of dive, so of course the factor changes. Seems like your old shortcut didn't fail, you just ran into a deeper profile and the sup wanted it by the book. Not saying don't check your math, but calling it undersizing on two other dives makes me wonder if those were really that deep or if you're just spooked now.
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