BOB tip from the River Rat

[Brownwater Riverrat 13]

Here's a space saving, water proof tip from you Brownwater Riverrat. If you have a Vacuum sealer or "suckee machine" as some like to call it. You can take your sweat pants, hoodie, long johns and socks and suck them buggers right up! Saving a butt ton of space in your BOB for a winter change of clothes. Come summer change those out for a summer light weight set of clothes. Vacuum sealing also keeps them high and dry. If you pack them in a 1 gallon freezer bag first (unzipped) you'll have bags for your dirty soiled ones. Don't forget your undies.

Note: The reason for not sealing the 1 gallon bag is you'll never get a good squeeze on your stuff with a sealed bag, in case you were wondering...........

Also in my bag of long johns is also a set of Under Armor cold weather long johns.

[David Armstrong]

The vacuum sealer is a great machine. Other ideas are a sealed container for copies of important documents, light-duty battle packs of ammunition, maps, and so on.

[Sniper-T]

I love my vacu-sealer for my truck stuff. change of clothes, food, etc. I spend a lot of time driving gravel roads, and the dust gets everywhere, Not having to bang the dust out of everything is nice. plus I... kinda... leave my windows open a bit sometimes.... It's nice having stuff dry and or not covered with snow.

lol

[greg48]

to add to riverrats post; every thing weatherized, in ziplock bags, will also give your BOB some bouyancy.

[2die4]

to add to riverrats post; every thing weatherized, in ziplock bags, will also give your BOB some bouyancy.

If the air is sucked out of the bags wouldn't they sink like rocks? I really don't know. I've never used one before. (Yes it's on my bucket list to get of everyday use/SHTF gadgets and gizmos)

[Brownwater Riverrat 13]

I used to train Marines in Combat Water Survival, part of that training was was packing their gear in their rucks. It encompassed the packing of said gear in plastic bags. If the Marine did not do as instructed, the Marine started to sink. The Marine essentially failed and had to be rescued, hence becoming a burden to his fellow Marines. Or a casualty of the sea, chalk one up for Davy Jones.

So the answer to the question is YES, it does retain it's buoyancy even if it's vacuum sealed. Not so much as without the sealed pouches but if you "packed" your ruck full it would still be there. Now we are also talking about a Marine in full "battle rattle" which is a lot more gear than you might be toting. Believe you me there were many a humble Marine that we pulled out of the training tank. Hey, better there than in a real life situation. Lesson learned............but at least then they got another chance.

The sea takes what it's given and never asks why.

[Sniper-T]

it is impossible to suck ALL the air out of anything porous. That said, wether something floats or not will depend more on its bouyancy that how much air is in the bag with it. A pair of workboots will sink a large ziplock with air in it. (don't ask )

[greg48]

a person should weatherize everything that you don't want wet in your BOB. putting socks, t-shirts etc... in ziplock bags will not make neccesarily make your bag float but it'll make it alittle more bouyant. the army issues a water tight bag that is fairly good size, fits most in a ruck/pack in it, a person has to figure in a gone to s##t world, humping your BOB is gonna require water crossings. also a good reason for a good length of 550 cord, so you can work across a body of water and then drag yoyr bag acroos if it happens to be a fast moving stream etc...i know most of you know this i'm just adding to, talking out loud, going over the "good ole' days" in my head....

[Brownwater Riverrat 13]

it is impossible to suck ALL the air out of anything porous. That said, wether something floats or not will depend more on its bouyancy that how much air is in the bag with it. A pair of workboots will sink a large ziplock with air in it. (don't ask )

It's that dang math that we love so much.......weight overcomes the cubic inches of air. There fore the boots sink..............ah maybe.

Now a full grown man can jump in the water, take his dungarees/blue jeans off while treading water. Tie knots in the ends of the pants legs, holding them by the waistband and catching air by whipping them over his head and down on top of the water the legs will fill with air. This will actually keep him afloat for along period of time. As the cotton dries out it loses air. So this will have to be repeated. But you look at the size of those legs which ain't much bigger than about 2 one gallon ziplocks per leg and a grown man of about 190lbs. and it really kinda debunks your workboot theory. This is taught in Navy water survival. No offense brother...........

[Sniper-T]

if you want to get into a discussion about Archimedes' principle with a retired commercial diver, I'll be more than happy to.

1. your grown man is almost neutrally buoyant to begin with. most regular people are between 5 pounds of being neutral buoyant. the light ones float, the heavy ones sink.
2. work boots are negatively buoyant


3. all objects are buoyed up by the amount of water they displace. when the object is heavier than the amount of displaced water, said item sinks.

Even a solid cube of steel is buoyant. negatively so. 1 cubic foot of steel on the surface weighs 480#, under water it weighs 417.5, because it is buoyed up by the cubic foot of water it displaced. (water=62.5#/cf; 64#/cf for salt water)

So in your jeans example, assume that after tying the knots, you manage to get 1 cubic foot of air into them. in fresh water, that will provide roughly 62.5 pounds of buoancy. Give that to a man that is only 5 pounds neutrally buoyant, and it holds him up very well. If your man was extraordinarily muscular or geared up, he may of course, be more negative than that.