rEvo MOD 1 in Geneva

[pieater]

I never really thought a CCR would be for me, mainly because I was worried about the complexity, the risks and the cost. I have been fortunate enough to be able to discount the latter issue; realised the second will always need to be respected and so decided to look closely at the CCR market. I tackled issue 1 by looking for mCCR's that would be the most robust units out there.

There were three options:
Classic Kiss
rEvo 2
Copis Meg

I didn't fancy the Meg due to the over-the-shoulder counter lungs and associated clutter. The Kiss and the rEvo remained. I chose the rEvo because of the scrubber design and the low profile. Have a look here Home Page

Now it came as a surprise to me to discover that, despite the better safety record, mCCR's are not capable of achieving the CE standard. That means that they can't be sold within the EU. Therefore, I had to look abroad for training.

These two ugly feckers came highly recommended:
Zero Gravity Diving - Home and so communications commenced with Dave Cooper being available for as many telephone and email conversations as I needed to come to my own conclusions, based on the sage words of Dave along with my own research.

The dates were in the diary and the money lashed out just after Christmas, and that's when the doubts set in: would I be able to do it? What would I be put through? What if I hated it?

Well, the day dawned soon enough and I was off to Geneva. Despite Dave's generous offer of the use of Phil's floor,I decided to go to a hotel. Unfortunately my trip clashed with the Geneva motor show, so most hotels were full. I had to find one in the middle of Geneva which meant that I had a 30 minute each-way journey every day in a hire car: an Auto Corsa that went like a fart in a bottle.

I arrived the day before the course proper and as i arrived, Dave was explaining to someone that, "no - it doesn't matter if you've bought a Boris, I can't teach you MOD 1 if you're medically unfit". Repeatedly. At increasing volume. This I found strangely comforting, as I could immediately see that Dave took his responsibilities very seriously indeed. Later I was introduced to my rEvo, which the guys had thoughtfully assembled for me. Phil gave me a "tour" of the unit and I was reassured by the build quality, the design features, the finish and the simplicity of the operation; everything I wanted in fact!

I was also introduced to Fred, the other student; and Julien the impossibly young technical divemaster, whose job it would be to video our efforts on days 1, 2 and 3 and lead the dives on day 4 . Fred turned out to be an Austrian living in France who did a lot of Trimix diving out of Marseille. That meant that I was by far the least experienced person there - which concerned me somewhat. It also meant that on the course there were 2 students (they only ever accept a maximum of 3 at a time) to 1 Instructor Trainer (Dave), 1 Instructor (Phil) and Julien - again, very comforting ratios.

Phil's got a few bailout's available:


And "a bit" of sofnolime:


Fred getting some guidance from Phil (left) on "something"


Units getting prepped:


Day 1
I arrived at Phil's garage (training nerve centre) and was taken through the unit's operation in impressive detail. We packed the scrubbers, analysed the gas, calibrated the O2 cells and packed the cars.

We arrived at dive site 1 (St Prex) shortly afterwards. After site orientation we kitted up, did pos/neg tests, O2 flushed it and started the prebreathe. The "taste" of the new unit in the loop was enough to make me gag - in a big way. All chemical and rubber, it felt caustic on my lungs and the doubts about seeing it through returned. The guys slowed the pace for me, made soothing comments and I calmed down enough to get in the water. Phil's prophecy of "it'll be better when you're underwater" was totally accurate.

The first time you submerge on CCR is a very odd thing. For a start, no matter how often you hear someone say that breathing out won't help, you still find yourself trying it out of habit anyway. The second thing is that things are very quiet apart from the flip / flap of your own mushroom / one-way valves. We knelt on the bottom in 4M of water and did drills for 2 hours. This was complicated by the fact that my suit was leaking slightly and it was bloody cold. F*()&*(^&* freezing in fact. The rEvo works by using a constant bleed of O2 into the loop which you top up as necessary with a manual injection button underneath the unit. Now, at 4M, our old friend Dalton and his bloody law means that maintaining a PPO2 over 1.2 is hard. Very sodding hard. Also, kneeling in the water gives the worst Work of Breathing positioning possible. So, there was some graft involved. It was so cold that Fred couldn't feel the manual inject button despite having his finger on it. I was not shivering. I was shaking. We were both happy when we left the water for a defrost.

Dave and Phil then mentioned their new Golem Gear heated vests. The w4nkers

Then it was back to the batcave (Phil's garage) to strip the units and prepare them for the next day.

St. Prex dive site:


Day 2
Back at St Prex we went through the tougher drills from the day before and some new stuff like no-mask swims along a line; breath-hold swims and then we went for a swim.

This, for me, proved to be a bloody disaster. Bouyancy was a joke, PPO2 control was sodding awful and trim was just a long-forgotten memory. We got to 20M before returning. Vis was at least 10M unless you looked behind me but the temperature felt better - probably as we were swimming around enough to warm ourselves up. We got out and I was gutted. I'm no trim-god on OC but my performance on this dive had been shit. However, Dave and Phil didn't really see it that way and described this process as normal. I felt slightly better as we headed back, but beat myself up pretty badly when the video was on.

On OC, I use my wing for bouyancy control, just putting enough in the suit to avoid having my knackers crushed. Dave wanted us to use our suits for bouyancy and that new concept didn't help with my overall task loading. Also, trying to necklace your bailout reg gets a ball ache in the stage on / off drills so I adopted what everyone else was doing and used a boltsnap on a line around my neck to hang the reg from. Also, running the suit inflate from the bailout led to a birds nest of hoses in front of me that will take some time to resolve.

The video proved very useful as Dave pronounced me overweighted, dropped 2Kg altogether (total now 8) and moved 4Kg of it to the top of the unit. Cable ties are wonderful things. Fred was much, much better, yet Dave dropped 2Kg off him and moved 3Kg to the top.

Day 3
Usual preparations and we were off to Hermance dive site along with most Swiss divers it seemed. The units got a fair bit of attention, most of it in a language I couldn't understand

Phil thought he'd forgotten his hood and set off in the car to a sports shop. that gave me enough time to ask Dave if I'd heard Phil right when he said we'd go to 35M, spike our PPO2 to about 3, bail out and vent the units while doing a dil flush, before going back on the loop. On my third day on CCR? hmm. at 35M? hhhhmmmmmmmmmm. Dave confirmed that we were doing exactly that - before going SCR running on the ADV alone for a quick circuit of a small wreck. ooooooooooooohhhhhhhh shit.

It actually went well. So well in fact that Phil gave me a "wanky PADI handshake" afterwards.

Trim was much, much better - as was PPO2 and bouyancy control.

On ascent, we paused at 20M to deploy DSMB's and do simulated deco stops on our way to the surface. This went well for all of us.

The "boot full of loot":


Day 4
Dive site was at Rivaz and involved kitting up in a railway station. Getting down to your underpants in front of the passengers on the 11.15 to Lausanne was "interesting".

For this dive, Phil and Dave clipped our rEvodreams (primary PPO2 monitors) behind our backs and made us fly the units on the HUDs. The dive was to 40M, along a cliff, the underwater topography reminding me very much of Wastwater. Dave was running a very hypoxic diluent, so we just did his stops as simulated deco for us on the way up.

Again this went well. In the 20 - 25 minutes we spent swimming at 40M, I can confirm that I didn't need to add any O2 to my loop at all, the constant flow orifice being bang-on the money. This was a great dive and I felt I was starting to get to grips with the unit and the concepts required.

We surfaced and Dave and Phil announced that we'd passed our course and that Phil had completed his instructor qualification as well! That was it, 8 hours and 8 dives done. Dave then asked Julien to lead Fred and I on our last dive of the trip. This was pretty much a re-run of the previous dive except that we descended to only 20M this time.

From Dive 1 I'd been telling Fred that I'd been seeing lots of crayfish on the dives. Fred obviously needs to eat more carrots as he didn't see any. As we surfaced at the end of our few days course, I plucked one of the crustaceans from the lake bed and waved it in front of his mask. He saw one at least!

The dive site:


As Dave said in the post-course debrief, I now have a license to crawl. Walking comes much, much later.

Overall, I cannot fault the quality of instruction or the quality of the service provided. In a world where we're told to pick the instructor carefully, I would have no hesitation in recommending Zero Garvity. Get in there, you know you want too!

Papa Smurf Dave:

[colinicky]

Nice report & congratulations That water looks to darn cold to me !

[GLOC]

Sounds like fun but you appeared to progressed the depth very quickly. You must have had your proverbial in one sock then

[pieater]

Originally Posted by GLOC

Sounds like fun but you appeared to progressed the depth very quickly.

I can confirm that it was, indeed fun.

Re: depth progression, we were under close observation at all times, within arms reach in fact. The fact is that these things get easier to operate under 20M IMHO, and that you're in much bigger danger of going hypoxic in the top 10M. The ascents are the trickiest bit: controlling bouyancy and manually keeping your PPO2 high enough so you don't die. Manual CCR and very shallow depths aren't the easiest of bed-fellows. Swimming Pools are spectacularly dangerous places (statistically speaking).

Can we expect to see TFT in rEvos anytime soon?

[GLOC]

Originally Posted by pieater

Can we expect to see TFT in rEvos anytime soon?

Define soon

[Crieagle]

Congrats cheers for the reports, agree ugly feckers

[SoggyFox]

Originally Posted by pieater

that gave me enough time to ask Dave if I'd heard Phil right when he said we'd go to 35M, spike our PPO2 to about 3, bail out and vent the units while doing a dil flush, before going back on the loop.

well done.

[Decodiver]

Originally Posted by GLOC

Sounds like fun but you appeared to progressed the depth very quickly. You must have had your proverbial in one sock then

Gareth,

Day 1 - 4 metres (2 hours CCR)
Day 2 - 20 metres (4 hours CCR)
Day 3 - 35 metres (6 hours CCR)
Day 4 - 40 metres (8 hours CCR)

The certifications for rEvo are to a maximum of 40 metres, the depth is increased progressively from day to day, at the comfort rate of the student and the discretion of the instructor.

Cheers,

Dave Cooper.

[the goat]

Nice report and pics mate.
Suppose the season ticket money for you and the lad have been wasted on that jaunt and the contraption that goes with it eh??
Some people have no sense of priorities

[pieater]

Originally Posted by the goat

Nice report and pics mate.
Suppose the season ticket money for you and the lad have been wasted on that jaunt and the contraption that goes with it eh??
Some people have no sense of priorities

Never mind that. Tuesday, diving. It's got your name all over it Season tickets for deffo next season. He's still keen.