Pony Dilema

[John Gulliver]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Mark Davies @ Aug. 31 2003,21:22)]In my opinion, deciding you need a bail out air source is planning for bad gas management. Agreed, there may be situations were you are sufficiently distracted by ongoing events to not notice that you are running out of air. Suddenly sucking on nothing would be one hell of a wake-up call and you'd be glad of your pony then!

No, Mark, it's planning for emergencies. However well you plan your gas supply, you can still find yourself out of air with a single cylinder if Murphy puts in an appearance at the wrong time. It needn't have anything to do with destraction.

[John Gulliver]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (gaz @ Aug. 31 2003,21:48)]i got a cyklon rather than a cheap as chips scubapro r190 as my main reg was a cyklon and i knew it would help reduce the cost of moving to a twin set - if i decided to do it in the future.

Scubapro's R190 may be cheap as chips, Gaz, but it's one of the most reliable regs ever made. Like the Volkswagen beetle, it has no frills but it's a good old workhorse and won't let you down. I've had one on my pony for 5 or 6 years and it has never free-flowed, even in January/February in our zero degree Swedish waters. My Cyklon was a bugger for free-flowing and one of my beloved Apeks regs did free-flow on one occasion. Don't knock the R190! I see your point about wanting to have the same reg on your pony and single cylinder, though.

[Mark Davies]

<font color='#000080'>

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (John Gulliver @ Aug. 31 2003,22:00)]No, Mark, it's planning for emergencies. However well you plan your gas supply, you can still find yourself out of air with a single cylinder if Murphy puts in an appearance at the wrong time. It needn't have anything to do with destraction.

Yes John, I kind of agree. But I think it applies to twins aswell as singles.

I'm having this discussion on the DIR forum aswell. I'm trying to find a good argument for not having a pony if you've got a twinset, but it's exactly the point that you've made that's making a compelling argument for keeping one. I've put what I think is a good example on that thread, if you care to have a look and join the debate. (In &quot;Hose routing the DIR way&quot.

[Dominic]

I've got a pony link, but it was written more against the &quot;ponies are useless get a twinset&quot; brigade - I keep meaning to update it..

http://diveweb.oneandoneis2.com/Pony.htm

[Mark Davies]

<font color='#000080'>Dom,

I take it that you are now diving on twins and without a pony? Please, have a look at the thread I mention above and post back here with your views. I'd be interested in what you've got to say.

Thanks.

[Dominic]

That's right.

My views on what, needing a pony cos you've run out of air?

No, sorry, I think anyone who runs out of air just because they've ignored their SPG shouldn't be buying a pony, they should be giving up diving. There's no excuse for it, and it's a personal belief of mine you should never buy a piece of equipment to cover your own inadequacies.

If the problem is &quot;I don't monitor my SPG&quot;, the solution is &quot;Monitor your SPG&quot;, not &quot;buy a pony&quot;.

[John Gulliver]

Absolutely agree, Dom! There is simply no excuse for runing out of air because you didn't monitor your spg. Amazingly, though, I've seen it happen several times.

[Mark Davies]

<font color='#000080'>Dom,

I did ask for your views, so thank you. I was rather surprised though, and the sparsity of the reply makes me wonder whether you read my last post on the other thread (I wasn't talking about running out of air &quot;just because you ignored your SPG&quot.

The argument that you are making (and Tibbs and Phil on the other thread) seems to be:

&quot;I am too good a diver to ever run out of air. Regardless of the situation I am infallible&quot;.

Well, we're all human, and I think the example I posted is one that we could all find ourselves in. I appreciate your argument, but personally I think that planning to rely entirely on my ability and training in an extreme emergency is simply complacent. Perhaps you've been there? Perhaps you're confident that you know exactly how you will behave?

I don't know. I would like to have that confidence, and you will probably suggest training and regular drills. What drills do you do to prepare yourself for looking your best friend in the eye before turning your back on him and leaving him to die at the bottom of the sea?

I'm a little more humble. I am human, I am fallible. We are none of us &quot;Dive Gods&quot;.

[Dominic]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]The argument that you are making (and Tibbs and Phil on the other thread) seems to be:

&quot;I am too good a diver to ever run out of air. Regardless of the situation I am infallible&quot;.

Not at all.

I've seen two scenarios posted - a dive where you were so busy sightseeing you ran out of air, and a problem such as buddy entanglement.

In the first, I maintain that there's no excuse for - I value my life more than sightseeing.

The second, your example was buddy tangled up. And then, basically, your argument is you'll be too busy trying to free him to monitor your air.

I agree. But I still don't agree that's grounds for a pony.

Firstly, you ought to have enough air reserve that you could spend a reasonable amount of time without running out of air. That would get you out of any normal entanglement problem.

In the event of the severe tangle-up that you postulate, my first instinct wouldn't be to charge in blindly, shears a-waving - it would be to alert the surface. Send up an SMB, an emergency signal if you have one, with a note attached if you have that capability...

Once the SMB is deployed, I would get on with cutting my buddy's entanglement. Hopefully, support would be sent down, or we'd get free in the meantime.

Summoning surface aid with decent amounts of air instead of going it alone with my rapidly-emptying cylinder would, IMHO, be a far better option than going it alone. If no rescue divers came down, I would continue to try and get my buddy free until I ran out of air. If I had a pony, I would switch to that and continue my efforts until that ran dry to. I won't leave a buddy to drown just because I'm worried my air is getting low.

So no, even with your extreme example, I see no benefit to any twinset diver of carrying a pony. A twinset protects you from equipment failure, I have no need of something that'll keep me from running OOA.

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]What drills do you do to prepare yourself for looking your best friend in the eye before turning your back on him and leaving him to die at the bottom of the sea?

None - that's why a pony is no good to me. I wouldn't leave if I had any choice. From the way you post, I doubt you would either.

[Mark Davies]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Dominic @ Sep. 01 2003,11:01)]I've seen two scenarios posted - a dive where you were so busy sightseeing you ran out of air, and a problem such as buddy entanglement.

<font color='#000080'>Dom,

I don't remember posting the first scenario. I think you have misinterpreted my earliest post when I first mentiond OOA as a result of distraction. I was thinking of distraction in terms of a situation such as the second scenario, not mere sightseeing! That would be inexcusable.

My query first arose when I was telling a colleague about my new rig - though a single cylinder, in terms of redundancy it operates much like a twinset. His immediate reaction was &quot;But you've got no bail out!&quot;.

Now my view had been much like yours. Every time I've approached the topic I've made it clear that I think &quot;planning for OOA situations is just bad gas management&quot;. (Though I've said it several times, in your eagerness to flame me you seem to have overlooked that.)

But he got me thinking if there was any concievable situation where I could inadvertantly run out of air. The example I posted was one I thought of, and I wasn't sure how it would be dealt with without a pony. Your last reply covered the situation very well, thank you. It was what I had hoped for initially, rather than the sparse rant about my apparently crap diving.

We got there in the end.