Rant: burned 2 hours on a stuck umbilical until an old hand told me to just roll it out straight

Gavin Hill · 2026-09-23T20:50:02.526745+00:00

Had a nasty tangle in my 300 foot umbilical on a dock job in Gulfport last month. I was picking at it with a marlinspike for 2 hours trying to work the kinks out by hand, getting nowhere. An old diver named Ray walked over and said quit fighting it, just drag the whole thing straight across the parking lot and let the weight sort the twist out. Took me 15 minutes after that and the kinks fell right out. How do you guys deal with umbilical twist on shorter runs where you can't stretch it out?

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Rant: burned 2 hours on a stuck umbilical until an old hand told me to just roll it out straight | Commercial Divers - SMM Buzz