Hot take: I stopped using a lift bag for small salvage jobs and it's way faster

Everyone on my crew in Tampa Bay swears by lift bags for any object recovery, but I got tired of the setup time for small stuff. Last month, we had to bring up about 300 pounds of old steel cable from a 60-foot bottom. Instead of rigging a bag, I just used two standard 55-gallon poly drums I had on the boat. I sealed the lids topside, attached them to the cable bundle with a short sling, and vented them on the bottom with a simple pull-line. The drums had more than enough lift and were way easier to control on the ascent than a bag that wants to rocket up. I saved maybe 20 minutes on the whole job by skipping the bag inflation routine. Has anyone else tried a dumb, simple solution like this that went against the usual gear advice?

2 comments

2 Comments

jason5622d ago

Tampa Bay crews are gonna have a fit when they see you bringing up salvage with hardware store barrels.

juliam401d ago

I saw a crew in St. Pete last year using proper marine lift bags for a sunken skiff. @jason562, what's the actual risk with those cheap plastic barrels? Are we talking about them cracking under pressure or just spilling all the junk you just pulled up back onto the bottom?