Snapped my umbilical hose at 60 feet off Corpus Christi last Thursday

Was doing a hull inspection on a cargo ship when my comms just went dead. Got the backup whistle working but the real kicker was when I surfaced and saw the hose had a crack right near the fitting where it bends at the helmet. Lucky it didn't blow completely or I'd have been stuck at depth with no air and a long swim. Anyone else had a hose fail on them mid dive and what did you do to patch it temporary?

2 comments

2 Comments

avery_foster3119d agoMost Upvoted

Man I feel that hose fitting stress way too much. I had a similar thing happen off Port Fourchon a few years back where that same bend at the helmet started cracking after some rough handling on deck. My dumb fix was wrapping it with a few layers of electrical tape and then using a couple zip ties to keep pressure on the tape, which actually held for a full hour of bottom time. But honestly the real trick I learned since is to keep a spare hose segment already prepped with the right fittings in your gear bag. That way if you get a crack like that you can just swap the whole piece out instead of praying your duct tape job holds at 50 feet. What kind of backup comms setup do you run with those whistles?

lucas_grant8319d ago

You know I used to think that spare hose idea was just overkill, like why carry extra weight if you never had a problem. Then the exact same thing happened to me off Galveston last month and I was scrambling with electrical tape and zip ties just like @avery_foster31 described until I could get topside. It worked okay for a short run but that bend at the fitting is always the weak spot cause of the constant flexing underwater. Now I've got a prepped spare hose in my kit and it gives me way more peace of mind knowing I can swap it out fast instead of patching something that could fail again at the worst time.