Dive Rite Sidewinder Explorer Reel

North Florida cave diver, Woody Jasper, first invented the Explorer Reel around 1980. As cave explorations were becoming longer, deeper, and more extensive a reel was needed that could help an explorer make some serious penetrations into a virgin cave system. Less likely to entangle than other reels on the market, Woody's original reel was made of aluminum and a PVC spool. The side-handle style of the reel lent itself to exploration because it could easily switch from hand to hand while laying out line. Twenty years later, sidewinder-style reels were popularized in the technical diving community when DIR Aficionados began using them for paying out line in deep caves at high speed on a DPV.

Dive Rite's Sidewinder Reel is designed to be anti-jam by using precision machine tolerances between the frame and the spool making it nearly impossible for the line to slip between the spool and the handle. The Dive Rite's Wreck Explorer Reel has 550' (167.65m) of durable DuPont fiber braided #36-line which has 350 lbs (158.76kg) of breakage strength with an extra-large stainless-steel bolt snap.

Reel has an injected molded ABS spool which is breakage and crack resistant, it comes with a stainless-steel axle and high-quality machined CNC aircraft grade aluminum frame which are both corrosion-resistant. A knurled lockdown screw has a low-profile to prevent snagging and is easy-to-use even with gloved hands. Reel weigh 2.68 lbs (1.21kg).