I finally found a trick for clearing clogged lift bags without surfacing

Was working a 60 foot wreck salvage job off Port Canaveral last month and my lift bag kept getting blocked by silt in the fitting... tried blowing it out with the reg but nothing. Then a buddy told me to just tap the fitting with my knife handle sharply twice before inflating and it cleared right up. Anyone else got a quick fix like that for gear issues underwater?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.ruby28d ago

Tapping it with a knife handle sounds like one of those things that works until it doesn't. That fitting is brass and you're relying on a vibration to break up silt, but if there's any real debris in there you can bend the whole thing out of shape. I've seen guys crack their inflator hose doing that trick on deeper dives where the pressure is higher. Better to just carry a spare inflator tip and swap it out on the surface during a gear check. One less thing to go wrong at 60 feet when you're already dealing with a salvage lift.

anthony42627d ago

Carrying a spare tip is smart but not always practical when you're already in the water. That tapping trick has saved me a few times on shallower wrecks where the silt was just a little stubborn. Seen a buddy crack his inflator hose at 50 feet though and that was a bad day. Depends on how much risk you're willing to take versus how much gear you want to haul.