Posts by Klabautermann

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R.i.p robin williams

Too much drama and not enough underwater footage. As mentioned before, very bad scripted. :boring1:

:crazy: These reports are not a good advertising for buddy system. I almost got shot in the leg by some yahoo back in the 90's in Vava'u.

Awesome job

Quote from behslayer

Andrew, I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend. There is no blame here. Accidents happen and when they happen in the Ocean the clock ticks fast. Dan. You are being heartless. Yes, every dive accident and fatality needs to be reviewed so that we can all learn to recognize similar situations unfolding and avert them. But, we all do things that are not textbook. 2 experienced guys in a boat, relatively shallow water drift diving, who hasn't done that? This time it ended in tragedy. What happened? First dive.. breathing isn't relaxed yet. Maybe there's some other physiology, dehydrated etc. Shoot a nice fish at distance towards the end of the dive. It limps off the Spear.. you chase after it knowing that if you don't get it, you probably will not see it again. So, you push it.
Recovering a buddy is in itself dangerous and there's more than one account of rescuing divers becoming victims themselves. Murk Layer and a potential search area as large as a football field. There's a real possibility that the search team could have arrived to an empty boat when they finally found it and been searching for two victims. If you wanted to establish a protocol for this situation, it would be to anchor, call for support, make sure they have the correct co-ordinates and if necessary guide them in. A flare. A Flag. Make sure they know exactly where you are. Know from them how long it will take for them to get there. Keep an Open channel of communication with them. (They are going to tell you to Stay on the boat.) Then.. you could tether yourself to a large visible buoy, let rescue know what you are doing, and then jump in. But by this time, in this case, Rescue was there.

The important thing to take away here is sequence. With only one person on the boat, As soon as you realize that something is not right, the very first priority is to anchor and call for help.

Andrew, you will be rethinking this your entire life. You did the right thing. I'm so sorry for your loss.

+1 you did the right thing Andrew.

Quote from kmo

I'm so sorry for your loss Andrewk, the rest who have lost a friend, and of course Nate's family.
I know that it is hard not to replay the scenario over and over in your mind and think how you could have reacted better. It sounds to me like you made a really good decision in a terrible circumstance to dump the anchor immediately and get help on the way ASAP. Many would have delayed, hoping for the best.
Try not to be hard on yourself, grieving the loss of a friend is enough to deal with already.

X2, don't let anybody judge you, it's easy to do for those who have not been actually there at the time of the incident. I would have done this or that doesn't count from the computer desktop. I've seen my fair share of drowning victims (children and adults), resuscitation in warm waters like here in Florida are extremely rare . It's a very small time window we have here before irreversible brain damage or death occurs.Lets pray for Nate's soul and his family.

I feel for Andrew, losing his friend in a tragic accident like that. Many members including me dive solo. We all should learn from this and may take action and open a spot (sticky) in the forum, where we can find potential dive buddies for planned trips to help preventing accidents like that in the future.

My sincere condolences to the suffering family.

Thanks for the information.

Floatline = free ascent = no worries!

Quote from nishthefish

I've got a Rabitech Stealth Pro 110. A lot of Spearo's here swear by either Rob Allen or Rabitech guns for UAE conditions.
The muzzle is pretty awkward, however, it does what it intends to do rather well, that is, shoot straight. The handle could be more ergonomic though, but that's a minor gripe.

I prefer the feel of lighter euro's such as Cressi, Omer and Mares; but these Euro brands don't feel as 'tough' as the Rabitech. The hardware that came with the gun was solid! The stainless steel mech felt strong and smooth, and the 7mm spear is quite sturdy (shot into holes with no problems).

This isn't to say that I think it's unbreakable, but I think it seems pretty solid given the beating that it's gotten over the past few months. Will keep this thread updated if anything does happen to the gun.

I have no issues with the brand. I am quite dissapointed by what Mako have done with Rabi's products though. Kind of unethical pushing them out of the US market.

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I AGREE WITH YOU!
I also had no problems with my Rabitech, even liked it better than my RA, then switched to Riffe and so far very happy. For close ups on reefs and structure I use my mares 850 Cyrano old timer which never gave me a problem. I think that most manufacturers have their products made or assembled where labor is cheaper but some of them are able to keep the quality standards high.Cheers!

=0.0254mm for the metric spearos:)

Other small business owners will emerge and quality will prevail. Wishful thinking. :rolleyes1:

How about copyright protection?

Quote from Dude george

I am not from the USA and don't care where my stuff is manufactured, I care about the quality of my purchase... I also care if it is being ethically produced, as well if I am being ripped off.

Makes sense : - )

Just went to the website and I, ve seen my RA IKI SPIKE and want to puke. Seeing how much they retail and where they coming from makes me mad. I ' ve also seen a lot of familiar Handles and other stuff. It reminds me of the Mountain Bike Manufacturers, there are only a handful of frames made in the US.:(

So, where's every one else's ( AIMRITE,HAMMWEHEAD, MAKO , PATHOS,SPEARDIVER ,ect)manufacturing origin then? If everything comes from CHINA/TAIWAN factories the quality of the product (talking barrels) would be similar and we just pay for the labels and design.:(

I did not know that, knowledge is power!:10-4: I always thought that they where head to head with RA in SA. Cheers mate!

That's so sad watching a company who had a quality product once ,doing a nose dive like that. Other Manufacturers will feel a hit too in the near future, unless they step up their game.Thanks for the update Dan, I once had a Rabitech stealth 120 and was wondering if they're still in business. The competition is fierce these days with a lot of manufacturers emerging on the world stage with a quality product.