Scuba Tank Storage

[montenido]

Hi all, I am getting ready to make some dive trips out to the Channel Islands with my buddy. We will probably bring 8 Scuba tanks. Has anybody made racks on their sailboat for Scuba tanks? If not, any suggestions on storage areas would be greatly appreciated. I have a Catalina 30.

Thanks as always.

[SteveInMD]

How about attaching a board between two life stanchions (inboard), and then attach each tank to the board?

[MikeGC]

I have tried SteveInMD's suggestion and it works well. The stanchions were what I would call hard stanchions in that they were connected to each other by ss tubing not by life lines. The board was knotched to fit the bottom of the stanchions and blocks put on the bottom of the board to make it sit level. PVC pipe the diameter of the tanks and about 4 inches tall were attched to the board to set the base of the tanks in. The tops of the tanks were secured against the top railing with bungee cords. The only problem was that the wood rotted after a few years. We rebuilt it out of star board and have had no other problems.

[LoTech]

Originally Posted by montenido

Hi all, I am getting ready to make some dive trips out to the Channel Islands with my buddy. We will probably bring 8 Scuba tanks. Has anybody made racks on their sailboat for Scuba tanks? If not, any suggestions on storage areas would be greatly appreciated. I have a Catalina 30.

Thanks as always.

If you have the room to lay them down, you could try this:



An Inexpensive Scuba Cylinder Storage Rack

[sailingdog]

If you have regular wire lifelines, I wouldn't do the board and tanks method. With rigid rails, it works pretty well, but with wire lifelines, you're putting a lot of strain on the wires, which may or may not be corroded and weak.

Also, you might want to consider that you don't want the weight of the tanks high and outboard. It would be best to have them relatively low in the boat and a bit more central.