Incident STONEY COVE

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by TerryH

Although in my world, pony & DSMB are part of training, let's awnser
your question.

The occi was an absolute part of his basic training and should be mastered
to a reasonable degree. No different than mask, bouyancy etc.

A pony or DSMB is an addition to the most basic of diving skills, not part
of it. Need to seperate what should have been learned at the start with
additional elements added later.

T.

PS: Will be seeing my Kent mate this Sun on the U1195 and he will have
your cylinders

I hope you waned him that my kit usually fails spectacularly mid dive


I see your point Terry and I applaud your inclusion of SMB and Pony training for your students. I wish that were standard in the UK. I did my AOW in the UK and neither were covered. I did my OW in the blue and the instructor used a long hose rig bungeed and clipped off in the triangle.

Seeing as you already teach beyond the standards for OW AOW possibly the use of the long hose rig could be introduced as well. Then should a student end up coming to a diver like me for gas they will know what to expect.

A point which i found compelling was that in a genuine OOA the panicked diver often goes for the reg in his buddies mouth. At least with the long hose system this is standard and not going to deepen the incident pit.

I realize large organizations like PADI and BSAC will be incredibly difficult to maneuver into new training standards but I personally feel the octo idea as had its day and we should move forward to the long hose and necklaced reg as a standard in all training organizations.

The air share ascent has been dropped as it is universally agreed its too dangerous and its unnecessary now we all dive with back up regs as standard. I think in the future the standard octo will go the same way. Or at least IMHO, it should.

ATB

Mark Chase

[tom]

Originally Posted by Scubee

Yes, but there should never be a need to undo the cummerbund to get rid of the weights. )

Bit of a sweeping statement there. Although it's not a 'cummerbund', many divers using one-piece style harnesses route weight belts underneath their crotch straps.

I guess it depends on your risk assessment - what is the biggest risk, taking a little longer to ditch weights, or having a higher possibility of accidentally losing your weights?

Having redundant buoyancy, I'm more concerned about accidental loss of weights than a slightly longer ditch procedure.

[Scubee]

Originally Posted by tom

Bit of a sweeping statement there. Although it's not a 'cummerbund', many divers using one-piece style harnesses route weight belts underneath their crotch straps.

Totally agree, Tom. However, my 'sweeping statement' was in the context of a) the OP's comments and b) Lucybuycx comments and the refernce ro weightbelts and so on. It also carried the caveat that there are other weight systems.

I was also trying not to stray off the point of the thread.

[Daz217]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

I hope you waned him that my kit usually fails spectacularly mid dive


I see your point Terry and I applaud your inclusion of SMB and Pony training for your students. I wish that were standard in the UK. I did my AOW in the UK and neither were covered. I did my OW in the blue and the instructor used a long hose rig bungeed and clipped off in the triangle.

Seeing as you already teach beyond the standards for OW AOW possibly the use of the long hose rig could be introduced as well. Then should a student end up coming to a diver like me for gas they will know what to expect.

A point which i found compelling was that in a genuine OOA the panicked diver often goes for the reg in his buddies mouth. At least with the long hose system this is standard and not going to deepen the incident pit.

I realize large organizations like PADI and BSAC will be incredibly difficult to maneuver into new training standards but I personally feel the octo idea as had its day and we should move forward to the long hose and necklaced reg as a standard in all training organizations.

The air share ascent has been dropped as it is universally agreed its too dangerous and its unnecessary now we all dive with back up regs as standard. I think in the future the standard octo will go the same way. Or at least IMHO, it should.

ATB

Mark Chase

Well I've been back in today and adpoted the long hose in my gob with the shorter hose necklaced. It seemed to work well. Practiced some donations to my buddy and found it straight forward enough. plenty of length on the donated reg and no faffing to get it unclipped etc. Necklaced reg easy to find. Because necklaced reg was in sight and so easy to reach i checked it periodically for operation without any hassle whatsoever.
One question my "long hose" is the standard Octo 90cm and seemed easily long enough for the purpose of donation. I noticed most diving this system have longer "long hoses" Do i need to lengthen mine or should i leave it as it seems adequate?
I found that once i had explained to my Buddy what i was doing pre dive it really was not an issue donating the reg out of my gob. The main things as already mentioned were
1/ I knew it was working
2/ It was not clipped or tied into anything so donation was instant.
3/ The necklaced reg was prominant and easy for me to get to
4/ I periodically checked the necklaced reg for operation because a)It was for my use b) see point 3.
In conclusion i liked this method but will need to practice with it some more to get proficent but it seems fairly straight forward and logical.
If someone could just enlighten me on the hose length question that would be great.

[Scubee]

Originally Posted by Daz217

Well I've been back in today and adpoted the long hose in my gob with the shorter hose necklaced. It seemed to work well. Practiced some donations to my buddy and found it straight forward enough. plenty of length on the donated reg and no faffing to get it unclipped etc. Necklaced reg easy to find. Because necklaced reg was in sight and so easy to reach i checked it periodically for operation without any hassle whatsoever.
One question my "long hose" is the standard Octo 90cm and seemed easily long enough for the purpose of donation. I noticed most diving this system have longer "long hoses" Do i need to lengthen mine or should i leave it as it seems adequate?
I found that once i had explained to my Buddy what i was doing pre dive it really was not an issue donating the reg out of my gob. The main things as already mentioned were
1/ I knew it was working
2/ It was not clipped or tied into anything so donation was instant.
3/ The necklaced reg was prominant and easy for me to get to
4/ I periodically checked the necklaced reg for operation because a)It was for my use b) see point 3.
In conclusion i liked this method but will need to practice with it some more to get proficent but it seems fairly straight forward and logical.
If someone could just enlighten me on the hose length question that would be great.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you are going to dive with your hoses in this configuration is what the person you are diving with has been trained to do. If they have been trained to take a spare reg, then they will end up with your short one. If they have been trained to take the one out of your mouth, fair enough. If they are not particularly experienced divers, it is unlikely they will have been trained to take the one from your mouth. There are tales that in an OOA situation, panic sets in and the reg gets ripped out your mouth. The other side of this is that training should kick in and they go for the one not in your mouth.

[Daz217]

Originally Posted by Scubee

One thing to bear in mind is that if you are going to dive with your hoses in this configuration is what the person you are diving with has been trained to do. If they have been trained to take a spare reg, then they will end up with your short one. If they have been trained to take the one out of your mouth, fair enough. If they are not particularly experienced divers, it is unlikely they will have been trained to take the one from your mouth. There are tales that in an OOA situation, panic sets in and the reg gets ripped out your mouth. The other side of this is that training should kick in and they go for the one not in your mouth.

Hi Scubee,
I hear what you are saying but it only took 30 Seconds to explain to my buddy pre dive what the score was. The only problem i can foresee is if another diver who you haven't entered the water with were to approach you for air. If you approached them you would have already made the exchange onto your short hose and donate the long. It seems to make perfect sense.
As for the "Stranger" approaching i would hope that i could see what they wanted and act accordingly i.e. donate the reg out of my gob.
I can see the ar
guments both ways and at the minute i like the long hose solution as i said it seems to make sense to me.

[slip179]

Hi Daz, I have just been configuring some kit with a long hose today. Re the actual length, there seems to be several e.g. 5 ft, 7 ft. which I think are 1.5m and 2.1 m respectively. I have gone for the 1.5m as it allows some separation/ swim alongside without letting them get so far away you cannot control/reassure them. 2.1 m seems a lot of extra hose to bungee down. I think 2.1 came more from cave diving where the situation may call for more hose.

This is just my view and will let you know how I get on playing with it.

I am sure the more expert YDs will be able to provide more info.

Cheers, Rich.

[Daz217]

Originally Posted by slip179

Hi Daz, I have just been configuring some kit with a long hose today. Re the actual length, there seems to be several e.g. 5 ft, 7 ft. which I think are 1.5m and 2.1 m respectively. I have gone for the 1.5m as it allows some separation/ swim alongside without letting them get so far away you cannot control/reassure them. 2.1 m seems a lot of extra hose to bungee down. I think 2.1 came more from cave diving where the situation may call for more hose.

This is just my view and will let you know how I get on playing with it.

I am sure the more expert YDs will be able to provide more info.

Cheers, Rich.

Hi Rich,
To be honest i found the normal Octopus hose long enough to allow my buddy to swim alongside with no bother but admitedly only on one side(right) it would have been harder to the left. My hoses come off the right of my 1st stage.
Face to Face was easily achievable. I agree with the caving argument i think you are right there.
It just seems if the hose was much longer it would again result in having to stow the excess but i myself have only just started experimenting with this so there maybe a very good reason for the longer length that i am not seeing at the moment hopefully someone with more knowledge on the subject will post and explain it.
P.S. The hose router/clip was consigned to the bin and the Dacor was left at home.

[Scubee]

One other thing to consider is that for however long it takes you to donate the reg out of your mouth, two of you have no regulators in. if you donate the standard, normal, alternate air source, you still have a degree of conttol over what is happening.

If you had simply not had your alternate hose routed in a particular way, would the initial situation have been resolved easily? i suspect the answer is yes. If so, I don't see a need to change a system which works well for hundreds of thousands of recreational, single cylinder divers. There is a reason that the major entry level training agencies teach it this way.

[David]

Originally Posted by Daz217

Hi Rich,
To be honest i found the normal Octopus hose long enough to allow my buddy to swim alongside with no bother but admitedly only on one side(right) it would have been harder to the left. My hoses come off the right of my 1st stage.
Face to Face was easily achievable.

What you have now, would of solved your last problem :-) so would a better stored octopus(if it worked). All the time your diving is out in the open and you dont need to swim one infront and one behind your setup should work. If your diving needs change you might want to look at the lenth of the hose ?.

But the main point is you understand where it does not work well and avoid that situation. Then just go back to diving and have some fun :-)

David