Dive Knife

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Okay, thanks. I misread you.

What I did was to locate such incidents of emergency knife use as I could find. No one has done a survey of how many divers may use a knife defensively in light of how many divers may never need one.

I do know one diver who had to stab a shark, and his experience was limited to that sole occasion. The shark had just previously been hit with a spear as it made a pass at him. He was holding a fish on his line but the shark seemed also interested in him. He had prior reason to regard these grey reef sharks with caution. They are often aggressive.

He is a sport diver and does not spend as much time in the water as do professional divers. But he had that experience. Someone else may be in the ocean a lot and never have such an experience. I've been driving for over 40years and have had just one wreck, when I was rammed from behind while stopped at a traffic light. Others may have several wrecks in a few years. Oh, wait: a big Mercedes did run a red light and made me stand hard on my brakes. The other car left white paint on my front bumper as it passed at some 60 MPH! So, for me, that's two close calls in maybe 40-45 years. I have no idea what the national average is, or if anyone has/can establish it. Same for diving incidents involving dangerous marine life.

But the subject seems to be little addressed in print. I went through quite a few books to find the eight or so cases that I had room to include. This doesn't mean that divers don't have to defend themselves a lot more than I found out about. I just don't know of any source that has tabulated such cases. Many are probably never reported, especially from Third World countries. With regard to that, I feel sure that quite a few shark attacks never reach George Burgess, who maintains the official Shark Attack File. So we don't read about them.

I know of just one case in which a man successfully stabbed to death an African lion with a hunting knife. You may know about that. The game ranger's name was Harry Wolhuter and the lion's hide was displayed for years in Kruger National Park. The lion had dragged Wolhuter off of his horse and had gotten hold of him by one shoulder and was dragging him off, presumably to eat. The hunter was able to draw his sheath knife and stab the six-inch blade into the animal's heart, saving Wolhuter. He never regained full use of the affected shoulder, but otherwise lived a normal life. I think that others could have saved themselves had they had a knife.

I know of just a few cases where men have used knives to save themselves from bears and from cougars. In one case, a Spyderco with about a three-inch blade was used to drive off a cougar attacking a six-year-old boy in a national park. The animal wasn't killed but was driven off. The only other cougar vs. knife case ended with the victim cutting the cat's throat, although much messed up, himself. But other cases may have escaped my scrutiny. I do know of other victims who might have saved themselves had they had a knife.

So it is with sharks. I just don't think anyone has the info you asked about. It's hard enough to just gather reliable reports on the attacks, themselves.

How much do some watersports people worry about a second attack? Depends. One young lady named Bethany Something is a TV personality. She still surfs after losing an arm to a big tiger shark. I guess she doesn't reckon on finned lightning striking her twice! Rodney Fox also kept diving after being almost bitten in half by a big white shark. Others who were bitten may decide to take no further chances. Who knows the odds, across the board?

I wish that I had a better answer for you. But no one does.
 
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Using a knife to stab a shark in self-defense may be the equivalent to ringing the dinner bell (blood in the water) for all the other sharks in the area. One of my earliest memories about shark defense was not from Sea Hunt but the J.C. specials where all the divers had a short club to poke any shark that got to close. Lemme see do I want to have my hand 6 to 7 inches away from a shark's mouth or a yard/meter away from a shark's mouth?

Willie Sutton if you are still following the thread please tell us how many times you have defended yourself from sharks and what you did to maintain possession of all your body parts. What do you think is the best tool and worst tool for shark defense?
 
What do you think is the best tool and worst tool for shark defense?

That's not difficult, the best would be the new EM field shark repellant systems. If the shark doesn't approach you close enough to touch then you've effectively defended against shark bite. The worst - a blood sausage.
 
The worst - a blood sausage.

Followed closely by any dive knife....Dive knives or knives of any kind are not effective against shark attack.
 
That looks like the length you set for the mora. Is that about right?

Precisely
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Why do you think the bungee is better than surgical tubing in this application?

Easier to get the loop off when needed, and better long term durability. You simply don't need force for the retention and you want plenty of loop to grab with a finger. Thanks for enlarging the pic for clarity BTW.


How often do most pilots really use a parachute?

At SETP (Society of Experimental Test Pilots) conventions, Martin-Baker ties are seen routinely. There's only one way to be awarded one. On the other hand, having been a diver since about 1966, and having worked professionally in the industry since 1979, I've never heard about any case in which a dive knife was used as a weapon.


The following is worthy of ridicule (sorry but I call 'em like I see 'em, and this is worthy of ridicule). And note that I am ridiculing the story, not the person who has presented it here. He was told it and is simply reciting it. It's, well... nonsense. But nonsense that the original teller likely thought was true.... read on:

"One such incident was tragic. A teen tried to come to the assistance of another person being attacked by a shark off of California. The lad had a war surplus M-3 trench knife that wasn't very sharp and he wasn't able to stab effectively".


You can't stab effectively underwater no matter what you have at hand. You are suspended on what are essentially nearly frictionless ball bearings. Push with a pound of force against something and you have simply forced yourself back away from it. You would NEVER be able to penetrate the skin of even a small shark with a knife underwater. You can't develop any velocity (try swinging a hammer underwater: you can't even drive a nail into soft pine), and you cannot exert any more force than the tiny frictional forces that keep you from being suspended in a completely frictionless environment. So although the teen might have had a dull knife and BELIEVED sincerely that his failure was due to it's lack of sharpness... he was mistaken. He likely couldn't have gotten an icepick into a shark and certainly not one that was engaged in biting bits off someone else.



"Willie Sutton if you are still following the thread please tell us how many times you have defended yourself from sharks and what you did to maintain possession of all your body parts. What do you think is the best tool and worst tool for shark defense?"
__________________


If you deliberately want to engage and then fend off sharks you carry a 4 foot fiberglass pole spear with a barbless point on it and use it to keep the toothy bits at arms length. That's speaking as someone who owns a shark cage and used to take divers out to look at sharks close up off of Montauk Point NY. They stayed in the cage. I was the guy outside feeding them bits of fish off the end of the pole spear. I have seen hundreds of sharks ranging from lemon to blue to tiger to bull sharks and I've never been hassled, and know nobody who ever has been hassled. Except a friend who had his buddy eaten by a Bull Shark off of Riviera Beach in 2001. I don't care what he might have carried, when an 8 foot Bull decides it wants your leg you'll never even feel it, so why worry? Your knfe isn't going to help you. We just don't carry bloody fish that we have shot close to our bodies, and things just seem to work out OK.



"I do think weapon potential should be there. Besides sharks, there are many other marine and fresh water denizens that might require a knife to deal with".


<Sigh>....The ability of people to build a fantasy world surrounding things that they know nothing about never ceases to amaze me....



Willie

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Ok, enough about sharks.

If you want a dive knife look at Divers Direct, one of the oldest dive equipment suppliers.

I have a Kit Carson U2 in Stellite, but I've never carried it since I'd be loathe to lose it for any reason (I'm sure Kit would have rolled his eyes at me for not carrying it after I pestered him so much for it). I have a David Boye dendritic cobalt alloy as well. I did carry it, but it made me uncomfortable thinking about losing it.:rolleyes: I have a Mission MPK that I carried, but cleaned it and put it away for "some day". :scrutiny: I have all of the Spyderco Dive Probes, but I never intended to carry them. :evil: (I'm noticing a trend here. :uhoh:)

I have carried a Spyderco Rescue as a backup as well as a Spyderco Bob T. They rode on the BC. I carried a Blackjack Knives BKT Dive Tul, but it weighed so much I stopped that pretty quick. I have a Gerber Blackie Collins River Raft knife that I've toted many times. My wife isn't a knife geek, in spite of her collection, and she's carried the same little Tekna for over 20 years.
 
Tekna... haven't heard that name for a while! Great little knife, I actually have one in the leather boot-clip sheaths they made for them, as they tried to cross-over into the defensive knife market. Sold tons of them at the dive shop I ran for a few yeards back in the mid thru late 80's. Too bad the blade design seems shaped to preclude actually sharpening one, never mind the stainless steel they are made of. "soft as butter" describes it.

hso, shoot me a PM with address and when I'm in RI in two weeks picking up supplies I'll score you a few of the different Moras for experimentation as a token of esteem and thanks for what you do here as a Mod.


Willie

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BTW: NASA doesn't have a SAR team: We don't have a *manned space flight program* and there isn't anyone to rescue.

For 8+/- years prior to the manned shuttle program ending I have been part of the group of people tasked with going out in case astronauts need rescuing. That team is called the United States Pararescue out of Patrick AFB, FL. (I am NOT claiming I am a PJ or in anyway special forces...I'm just a small non operator pee-on!)

During that time I have NEVER known, met or even heard so much of a word about a NASA rescue team...NOT saying one does NOT exist. Because we only were there if the shuttle went "sideways" early into the launch. I guess if it went sideways later in the launch it would be well over a far away country in which a HH60 or C130 from Cocoa Beach Fl would be useless.
 
^^ This.

The PJ's in the USAF were the prime modern space program SAR players. PJ's are top echelon players from what I've seen at Edwards.

In the early space program USN UDT divers did the capsule recoveries, bearing in mind that tbeir mission was being a surface swimmer and not a diver per-se.

NASA has never had organic SAR capabilities.


Willie

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YMCA '76 and danged few dives since with scuba.

I carry something with a sharp edge somewhere I can get to it.

I started out with what my instructors called a "Dive machete" that was a cheap bit of steel only as long as my calf...... That did not last long. Lonst a smaller double edge I liked and started thinking cheap.

My moment of ah-ha you do need something was just below the Devil's Ear and Devil's Eye in the Santé Fe river. (Willie, ever been to the Ginnie Springs area?) Snorkleing for fossils. Not paying attention on a day with lots of tannin in the water I was on the bottom and drifted under the edge of a snag. On the way up I managed to somehow get my left leg in a wad of mono filament. Only the fact that it was light line and that it was wrapped around my rock boot and fin rather than my leg prevented injury and it was the devil to eventually break it. Plus one of Willies comments on trying to do anything under water while suspended. I had not carried a knife because someone had poked fun at my cheap old POC dive knife.

Now if I go in the water I carry something with an edge. As I skin dive in Florida rivers in cut offs as often as not I carry (don't laugh, it works) a cheap ballysong in a pocket. ( infact someone took note of it in a pocket while I was getting out of the water last month and asked if I thought I was going to be attacked on the river. I briefly explained monofiliment line. If a pacifier makes one feel better why begrudge him of it)

I do like the razor cutters Willie has turned us onto and will likely get one or more before next spring.

That Shrade W4 crow bar/knife/ saw/ line cutter with the bright yellow handle is a blade type not uncommon among sport divers in Florida during lobster season.

I have never gotten the nerve to risk my RM 16 in the water, either.

-kBob
 
kBob, I'm YMCA '74 for my cert (started diving long before with my old man though). I KNOW you can swim if you passed that course in '76. The Navy had nothing on YMCA. Hard core to be sure. Take a look at the book in the pic below and I bet you recognize it... It's the one I took my course with "way back when".

I can hear it now: "SWIM, Maggots!! And breathe straight from that tank cylinder without a regulator... only PUSSIES use regulators..." (Ahh... the good old days of dive training, relying on the three basic pathways to learning: Fear, Intimidation, and Ridicule. But I digress....)

Oh well... times have changed. They sell pink dive knives now.

Back to topic:

"Yes" on Ginnie Springs. Started diving the caves there in 1978 during my college days at FIT across on the coast. I dive Devils Ear, Devils Eye, and many of the other holes in the ground all the way across the state. The situation you describe is exactly what we train for and exactly what we carry tools for. We spool out line from our reels to make jumps from one permanent line in the caves to others, and we need to be able to cut stuff that snags. Controlling your own line is 7/8 of the battle there. Out where the fishermen are fishing... well.... mono ain't your friend, is it? Can't see it, can't break it. Get caught down-current with your fin snagged and you best have a hook knife. Hint? Tape over your fin strap buckles to reduce snags...

Since you are snorkling in yellow-brown water, you'll appreciate that I think that my freediving is a more critical situation than my scuba. You have many minutes to deal with a snag on scuba. You have moments when you are holding your breath and are five feet under the surface. You need it NOW. For you I would suggest the Jack the Ripper. It's longer than the Trilobite and you can reach your own fin area with one even if stretched out full length. Keep it where you can reach it with either hand... that's important.

Hit Amigos in White Oak if it's not too far to travel, or any of the other cave diving supply places there. Cutters like that are as common as dirt in those parts.



hso, to Mora retention: The last photo I'll bore you with here (promise) is me jumping off the Spree down in Key West to go set the mooring on the wreck of the Wilkes Barre (US Cruiser on the bottom at about 250 or so). That's a 12 foot jump, carrrying two side-slung 80's for deco gas plus a pair of 80's on my back. For non-divers, that's FOUR large full sized scuba bottles plus the balance of the gear. Imagine jumping from a swimming pool high-diving board wearing 250 pounds of crap and you'll get it. Yes it hurts... Now: You can't see them but there are a pair of *unsecured* Mora knives on my harness. I've never lost one even doing this sort of diving, which is squarely in the big leagues.

I did see a Bull Shark on this dive... I just didn't bother to try to stab it... :rolleyes:




Willie

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Besides asking why in the world would you take a 12ft drop to entry, why not secure the Moras? Sure, they've never come loose before, but... I secure everything (I watched a guy's dive computer come loose and smash to bits on the dive platform in Key Largo on my first open water dive and that taught me an important lesson, also not to have a big breakfast in 8ft. seas).
 
Well.... when you do a mooring tie-in off the Spree (120 foot crew boat) in a 2 knot current, you basically need to jump off the boat about 200 yards directly up current from a heavy drop-weight that's been dropped on the wreck with an attached (400 foot long) line and a large orange buoy, and then drift down to the ball in the current while beginning your descent and drifting down to intercept the descent-line. At the bottom you unshackle the chain from the weight and then shackle the chain to the wreck and then send the dropweight back up with a liftbag. This puts the tie-in completely securely for the "paying passengers" to use.

On the day of the pic, there was a pretty good sea state (like 3-5 foot) and I happened to mis-time the jump. The normal 8 foot drop to the water from the dive-deck missed the wave top and so... there I was. The paying folks get to choose their time and are not diving from a running live-boat. The crew making tie-ins jump when the Captain calls "JUMP" over the PA system as he runs slowly by the buoy, and when he says JUMP, I jump. This isn't tourist diving.

There's no need to secure the knives. They just don't slip out of the sheath, and never have, Plus if one did... "big deal", as I've got several cutters on my rig and they are cheap enough.

We do secure what's expensive and important: I usually wear a pair of ($1500 each) Shearwater mixed gas dive computers on my wrists, BTW... secured with the same cheap 3/16 diameter thin wall latex surgical tubing that you asked about before. On each computer is a Trilobite. The pic of the jump on the Wilkes Barre was before I put those on to the computers. You can see one on my left wrist in the pic, I can't remember but it looks like I was only wearing the one that day. I usually dive a rebreather but had stripped down that day to dive open circuit and I think I left the second Shearwater attached to my rebreather.


Willie

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Willie,

I have a personal story about a friend's brother who was a USCG diver that was saved by a Spyderco Rescue that he carried in his BCG as a "can't get to anything else last option". I sold that knife to him and his mom walked up to me at our first meeting and put her arms around me and thanked me for "saving" her son's life.

As the primary knife, I'd agree, but as the final backup...
 
Iv'e been into snorkeling recently and want to get into diving. I didn't know about the mono filament problem so I need to change my ideas about a dive knife. I'll definitely get a line cutter or a few but I also have some questions about dive knives.
Has anyone owned the Spyderco aqua salt? It's a fixed blade. How is that as a dive knife?
I have an old Gerber river knife. How does that rate as a dive knife?
Serrated or straight edge? I ask this cause I hate sharpening serrated edges and I don't do a very good job of it. Thing is if serrated is far better than straight I'll have to change my thinking.
I also have a question about knife color. Yellow shows up better on a dark surface but I find that it disappears on a light sand background. Black is the opposite. Which is the best color overall.
Thanks.
 
I have a personal story about a friend's brother who was a USCG diver

Surface swimmer. The Coast Guard doesn't really have divers...they have surface swimmers. Mask, Fins, Wetsuit, and Survival Gear vest. Bad Ass guys. Have had one aboard my boat during a helicopter basket extraction of a diver, who sadly didn't make it. Aheart attack at 360 feet on a rebreather and then ascent without deco will kill you three ways (lethal cardiac event, drowning, and decompression sickness) but we didn't know that when he floated up. And yes, they often carry those folders. Their mission is entirely different than ours. Several of the ones I know carry Benchmade AFO Autos.

I sold that knife to him and his mom walked up to me at our first meeting and put her arms around me and thanked me for "saving" her son's life.

Which is a good thing! Bravo-Zulu (look that up)



Fixed blade Spidyco Rescue anyone?

<yawn>... I'll take a dozen Moras for the same price and have better tools.



Willie

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