Buddy crack (suicide??) bottles

[ian Price]

Id like some considered advice please!

My buddy Pioneer has a crack bottle and 'autoair' I like the auto air and have a long primary which I donate, plus one or 2 pony bottles as redundancy (2nd pony, if I carry it, is side slung with 50% mix)

The crack bottle is at the back but the valve is on the front side of the jacket, now discounting the dubious bollocks of breathing off the jacket... I have kept the bottle cos I have thought of it as redundant boyancy, ie diving on a single should my primary 1st stage malfunction, Ive got a quick means of inflating my bcd..

I have NEVER ever come close to cracking it by accident, I can move the valve into the jacket etc. To make it highly unlikely...

However, The odd 2nd thought is creeping in and I think I read something on 'handbag-net' about somebody buying a blanking plate and ditching the bottle...???

Does anyone have first hand experience or advice, rather than the usual novice stories or a brothers mates cousin stories...

I would value some practical and experienced advice..

thanks

Ian

[Steve S]

<font color='#000080'>Hi Ian,

no stories of them being opened by accident but one of our club members had the bottle break the plug which holds it onto the bc [missed a weekends diving as a result] but it made me think &quot;what if this had happened underwater&quot;

The jacket was less than a year old and he has since blanked it off.

Safe diving,
Steve.

[Mark]

<font color='#000080'>Ian,

you can get a blanking plate as I fitted one to my Pioneer TD. I never dived that BC with the bottle fitted. If you lose your backgas but have a pony cylinder to breath, you can orally inflate the jacket. If you are neutrally buoyant you wouldn't need to be adding gas to begin your ascent anyway. I really don't see any good reason for you to keep the crack bottle.

HTH

Mark &nbsp; &nbsp;

[Dominic]

My tekwing has never had anything but a blanking plate on it - I had a bottle on my Commando, but when I came to decide exactly how I wanted my wing, I realised that bottles just aren't a good idea.

On the other hand, bottles on SMBs are a great idea

[parahandy]

Ian
True enough theres been numerous stories of divers getting into trouble using the small independent bcd bottles, just as there has been with other equipment. Clearly to the unwary you can end up in a stack of trouble.

The background to these bottles, evolved from the days when direct feed was not around.  In the early days  Bouyancy control was achieved by blowing air into the BCD via the mouthpiece and dumping it. If you didn't fancy the idea of getting a mouthfull of sea water the option was to fill up your bdc with air from your bottle.  As thankfully direct feeds became common place these skills became redundant.
Already been mentioned, some of the skills assessment for qualification included cracking open the bottle &amp; venting air into your BCD and breathing it from the bag, ain't that grim!!!!!

My personal experience with it,
Years ago having lost contact with my buddy  I got myself into a situation at depth with little bouyancy and unable to lift of the bottom.  
I was 100% sure I wasn't going to reach the surface. Dumping the weightbelt and inflating the bcd with the inflator didn't have the effect. My A*se was tweaking &amp; I desperatly wanted to see the light of day again. I cracked the bottle much to my surprise nothing &quot;seemed&quot; to be happening, then 5-4-3-2-1- lift off, probably something akin to those guys that do the submarine escape drill in the tower thing transpired. I vividly recall the surface coming into view at an very alarming rate and managed to slow the ascent with a combination of desparate dumping of air and flaring.
I guess I was fortunate as I only had a few mins bottom time run up and I other than a desire for a clean change of underwear,having &quot;nearly Shit myself&quot;  suffered no adverse effects.  

Probably on the basis of my unfortunate experience, you'd be forgiven for thinking i'd still be using one NO, got rid of it yonks ago. I remember when I first removed it the act nearly caused a riot in the local dive club guess it was &quot;then&quot; considered an unsafe diving practice etc etc.

Footnote to this is an extract from a well known diving book,
recounting a venture into the whirlpool of Corryvreckan.

A proffessional Scallop diver dropped for scallops at 20m, he found no bottom at 40m so finned up, but found himslf still going down. He therefore fired his ABLJ ( Suicide bottle) and found himself still going down.  He saw the bottom at 75m! it was going past very quickly, but then at last his bcd finally pulled him towards the surface.

Tony

[jasondrake]

I always carry mine, full, on my tekwing. I've never had a problem with it, despite it being a failure point and stories of rocket-ascents. I like it for two reasons. Firstly if I run out of air (not happened yet but does happen a lot killing many divers) I want to get to the surface ( or at least off the bottom to a sensible depth) damn quick. Oral inflation only works if you've got air, and in those circumstances isn't realistic anyway. &nbsp;Arguably thats what dumping weight is for, or your buddy is for. I don't carry weight on tech dives and don't rely on buddies for any diving. OK if I've got a big deco obligation i'll get bent stupid but I'd much rather be on the surface breathing air and bent stupid than at 40 metres breathing water, albeit without sore elbows. (If I've got staged deco gas then I can arrest my ascent and deco normally.) The vast majority of divers who die drown, and many &nbsp;of them on the surface. Thats reason two. If I make it to the surface after an incident I want to make sure I stay there, quickly. So I crack the bottle, jobs a good un. When diving single bottle with a weight belt, lets say I run out of air or my lp inflator shits it I'd much rather crack a bottle than fart about orally inflating or dump weights. With practice I can control my buoyancy well with the bottle - a lot more control than dumping weight. All that said, I've never needed to use it as my dryuit is my primary buoyancy, but I like a third source of &nbsp;buoyancy before I start thinking about dumping £50 of lead, or even worse spend time unclipping £300 stages. And I believe that in a situation of critical buoyancy failure the last thing I ever want to do is take a reg out of my mouth to &nbsp;orally inflate a 23 litre bag, at depth or on the surface.

[Digger]

<font color='#000080'>Sorry, but I just hate these little things. If they're part of your plan, or part of your redundancy, you've got problems. I've got a million and one things I'd do before fitting one to my jacket.

No clear surface on a dive means that precisely to me. If I'm in that position, I'm not going for the surface. Simple as that. If you're that concerned, take a pony with another inflator hose on it, so you can plug that into your wing/BCD.

If you're pootling around on easy dives without deco obligations/a roof over your head, maybe you could convince me to let you bring it on the dive with me. I doubt it, because on those sorts of dives you should be able to weight yourself precisely so as not to need to use one. You swim up, or breathe in, or I'll grab hold of you and use my kit to get you going. I'd much rahter grab hold of you in that situation than grab hold of you as you head for the surface like a polaris missile.

All round, they're a bad idea. I'm yet to hear a good argument in their favour. A couple of experiences where they've been of use, but there's all too much risk using them to convince me I'd actually want one, even for those eventualities.

They're a bit of equipment from a bygone era we just don't need anymore.

Jason, if you look at the incident reports, it's often reported that a body is recovered with air in their tanks, how some of these casualties happen is beyond me, but it seems that running out of gas is a case of dire dive planning, and an inability to manage a gas supply suggests to me someone who hasn't been trained to dive. We all have, so there's no excuse.

If you really want a third source of buoyancy, get a redundant wing with a separate inflator. Now that would be covering your arse.

I can see your logic, but it's not my logic.

have I gone on a bit of a rant? Sorry, it's late and these little bottles really pull my chain...

[Richie]

I like the little bottles, for nostalgia rather than practical reasons.
In the days before redundancy etc I was in a wreck (Hispania) &nbsp;and due to a failed SPG my buddies had run out of air and gone whilst I had plenty left &nbsp; .
Anyway reg went tight, SPG said 80 bar or whatever and I swam between decks to the hatch on the bottle of my Fenzy ABLJ.
As final insurance, last ditch I'll keep it thanks - just in case.

[Dominic]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]If they're part of your plan, or part of your redundancy, you've got problems

That was why I stopped using one. Same as quick-release weights: There's always a better way of getting out of the problem than relying on something that'll send you screaming to the surface.

Redundant air supply, gas management, redundant bouyancy, etc. There's no situation crack-bottles can get you out of that you couldn't have handled better with the right equipment or dive practices.

IMHO.

[NamTinker]

Well, my bottle works great when I check my Pioneer bladder the morning before each dive.
Also nice to be able to inflate it after washing without messing about with a big cylinder.
And doesn't it serve as a great little supply for a lift bag!

So in summation: Some like them, some don't. &nbsp;Plan carefully and you might never require it. &nbsp;Accidents can happen - but so can it with any other piece of equipment. &nbsp;To each his own.

Just make sure you don't often decant from the 300 bar cylinder with your 232...