Posted on 09/26/2015 2:00:56 PM PDT by Travis McGee
Last June, while sailing from Florida to North Carolina, I was able to realize and 20+ year dream and go dive-planing with dolphins in the open Atlantic ocean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXwNLaeNOXQ&feature=youtu.be
I had plans to go to Mecca CA and eat some pork. Being a very small town Del Taco and Subway made the best 10 restaurant list. So I ate lunch in Indio or Coachella. Some really great pulled pork. But I as thinking Mecca.
Matt, that was a great video! Nice to see that you’re back safe. Also good to see that you had some fun!
You are “Da Man”.
Hope you are kidding about using a kite! LOL!
Might as well try using a drone!
(PS: On the off-chance that Sarah is a dear friend or relative — because McGee could kill a man armed only with a leaf of soggy cooked cabbage — I would NOT hit it.)
:)
I don’t think they will sell at all, so I just want to sort of spread the concept around to those who might adapt it while sailing. The potential market is pretty tiny. You need a boat that can tow a human at a steady slow speed, it kind of sucks behind a small dinghy with an outboard, say. A sailboat is perfect, but again, the number is limited. Then, you need warm and clear water. Limited again. And then you need folks who are not afraid of being eaten by a random shark.
No, Sarah lives in the Bahamas, and was only aboard for an hour to help diversify the video, so it would not look like an all-male deal.
They could be made of injection-molded plastic, but basic tooling costs thousands, and I just don’t see a mass-market. Anyway, anybody can make one from plywood.
I agree with all of your points about dive planes for fishing, and trolling etc. I have a sea-anchor parachute but have never used it, and hope I never need it.
We do dive-planing at about 2.5 to 4 knots, with 3 to 3.5 optimal. A sailboat can pull at that slow but steady speed with sufficient power to pull a pair of divers. It’s a pain trying to do it from dinghys with a 15hp or less. From 35hp and up it’s okay, and it’s a good way to scout reefs and wrecks etc. That is, cover a lot of area when looking for good dive sites.
As far as the math of the pivots, I wrote this on CruisersForum yesterday:
Here you go. It’s easy enough to describe it, so you can make one yourself.
Use 1/2” exterior grade ply. Thinner ply may crack at the tow-hole during hard steering.
18” fore and aft by 24” port to starboard is about right, but they can be larger or smaller if that’s the ply you have on hand.
First find the center of the board. The tow hole will be about an inch in front of the center. In the videos, the rope slot is straight, with parallel sides in front of the tow hole. In my newer versions, I open the rope slot up into a “V” to give the tow rope more latitude for steering without catching on the board. You need about an inch of ply in between the tow hole and the rope slot.
About an inch behind the center line, mark off a side-to-side line for your finger slots. The slots should be about six or eight inches apart. Each is about six inches by an inch. If you have a 1” hole saw, that makes it easy to cut each end of the slots, then jig-saw in between.
Just behind the inside of the finger slots, cut approx. 1” diameter thumb holes. Leave about an inch of ply between the finger slots and the thumb holes. Your hole saw can make these thumb holes too.
Round off all the corners, and sand all the edges, especially the finger slots and thumb holes. You can stick a piece of slit hose tube or even PVC over the finger slot’s rear edge for more hand comfort. That’s it, you have a basic one-piece dive plane or SEALplane as I call my version, to separate my simple and easy to make version from complicated and expensive multi-part commercial dive planes, such as the Subwing.
The basic operating principle is like a balanced rudder, but horizontal. Your tow line pulls from about 5% forward of the center line. Your fingers pull the other way from about 5% of the way behind the center line. This gives you just enough board balance for easy dives and turns.
I use about 50-70’ of 3/8” nylon line. Springy nylon prevents hard shocks when your tow line goes taut. Get your sailboat going about 2.5-4 knots max. 3 to 3.5 knots is perfect. Often we go dive planing on light-air days when we’re sailing at about 4 knots and we’re ready to turn on the diesel. Instead, we roll up the jib to drop our speed to 3-3.5 knots and spend an hour or two taking turns dive planing.
Just tie off the tow line to your stern, and jump in, facing your boat. When the nylon goes tight, off you go, with no shock on your hands or arms.
The easiest thing to do is surface: just point the board up. Many dive-planers put their index fingers on top of the board to help point the board down. To roll, just cant the board in relation to your shoulders, turning your board and body into a screw. You don’t need flippers, just a mask.
In the video Frog Doc is wearing flippers, it was his first try and he hadn’t mastered rolling just using the board and his shoulders. Flippers are nice if you drop off the board and have to swim back to your boat, but they make boarding harder. I don’t use flippers, just a mask or goggles.
You don’t need a snorkel either: just angle the board upward, and you will skim across the top of the water with your head all the way out. With two divers, you can talk to each other while resting on top of the water. You can also hold the board with one hand to clear your ears or wave to your boat.
To be recovered, just go on the surface, signal you have had enough (work out signals in advance, it’s hard to communicate verbally at times), and just stay on the surface with the board angled up. It’s easy for your crew to pull you back to your trailing ladder. When you are right up to the ladder, let go of the board with one hand and grab the ladder, then let go with the other hand, and your crew on the swim platform will recover the board while you climb back aboard. This is why I don’t use flippers, they are a hassle at the boarding ladder under way.
If you have enough crew on board, here is a trick to make pulling the dive-planer back to the boat very easy. One crew stands on the swim platform pulling the line. Another crew sits on the cockpit or aft deck just behind him, and also pulls the line. With two pulling the line, you can easily pull even a big heavy dive planer back to the boat in no time at all, maybe ten or fifteen seconds. With only one crew pulling, it’s harder and takes a little longer, but it’s still pretty easy.
You can go dive planing in murky water (like this summer from our boat on the Chesapeake.) It still feels great, like a total body deep-tissue massage. But it’s about like flying through coffee when you have low visibility.
In the deep ocean it’s very cool, and you will see your boat’s rudder and keel very clearly from 50-60 feet back. You can dive down at a 45* angle or to any depth your ears can handle. You can swing out 45* to the sides like a water-skier, and perform loops and rolls. If you have two divers out, take care to avoid collisions.
Best of all is warm clear water with a depth of 15-20 feet, when you can skim over the bottom and get the “ground rush” visual effect. You can also cover a lot of area if you are searching for a reef or a wreck this way.
Yes, dolphins are magnificent. I think they are so efficient that hunting for food doesn’t take most of their day, so they have lots of time for play.
But until I got in the water with them, I wasn’t sure if they’d ignore me, body slam me, bite me, or what. They were quite rough with each other, jockeying for position and bumping each other, but they never touched me.
Also, I had two trolling lines out, making three ropes / cords in the water, and they didn’t concern the dolphins in the least. For that matter, they can swim very close to spinning props, and never touch them. They are masters of their realm (at least until orcas show up.)
An interesting discovery about the dive plane that I didn’t mention is that you can fly with the board radically “canted.” I learned this when putting the go-pro on the corner of the board. At first I put it facing forward, and then 90* to the side. But I learned that I could mount the camera 45* to the right, and still fly straight forward to film ahead, or fly film to the right, and still fly ahead, or roll, etc.
What I’m trying to say is the board with the near-center pulling point is fully controllable even when warping or canting 45% (or more) right and left. This would not be possible with the Subwing or other multiple-line boards.
PFL
Oh to be young again. This is so cool!
That can be considered a feature. It immediately signals the boat that the diver is no longer holding the plane.
I'm sure I speak for many on FR when I say she did an excellent job of diversifying the video.... 8-)
I saw an old video of the diver who directed the underwater scenes in “Thunderball” and “Never Say Never Again”. He said the underwater filming and the devices, many of which had to be invented, was extremely difficult.
He also was the monster in “Creature From the Black Lagoon”. He is my BIL’s cousin, they both grew up in Jensen Beach. His name is Ricou Browning.
It made me realize that all that underwater stuff is a bit harder than it looks like.
I think you're going to be suprized how well this takes off. Mark my words, you're going to see people making vacation plans based on the ability of being able to do this.
And who wouldn't want his/her very own autograhped SMORGASboard/SEALboard by the famous author Travis McGee? :-)
Somebody should be watching the diver at all times! If he doesn’t come up in a minute, there is a problem. The board won’t come up without a person holding on.
Go-Pros in waterproof housings have made it possible to record all kinds of crazy u/w stuff.
You would be surprised how many folks are too afraid of sharks to try it. But a lot would, I guess.
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