Had a lift bag fail on me 60 feet down off the coast of San Diego last Tuesday

I was doing a routine pipeline inspection near the Coronado bridge and my primary lift bag just ripped at the seam. Suddenly I'm wrestling a 200 pound piece of equipment that wants to sink straight to the bottom. Managed to clip on a backup bag I always carry (thank god for that habit) and got it up slow and steady. Has anyone else had a bag fail on them like that, or was I just unlucky with a bad batch from the shop?

2 comments

2 Comments

zara5721mo ago

I was using a 50 pound lift bag from the shop down on Harbor Island when mine let go. The seam split right where the webbing attaches, not the tape. What I noticed later was the stitching was just single pass, not double stitched like some of the older bags I've seen. Maybe the shop is cutting corners on labor to keep prices low, you know? It's worth taking a magnifying glass to the stitching on yours, see if it matches up with what went wrong.

paigep201mo ago

Heard a similar story from a guy in my dive club last month who had a bag rip on him near the same depth off La Jolla. Turns out there was a bad batch of seam tape from a supplier that hit a few shops around here. Might be worth checking if your bag was made around the same time as his.