Pony Dilema

[tiewrapdiver]

Hi guys,

Digger said you could help me with a little problem of mine.

I'm a ocean diver nearly sports diver and looking at buying a pony rig, but don't know exactly what to get. Basically the arguement is should it be back mounted or side slung, 232bar or 300bar, 3ltr or 6ltr capacity and should i run some inflation off it.

Or should i not bother and just twin up??

Cheers

[MATTBIN]

Depends on what you want to do and how you see yourself progressing. I passed my OW/AOW abroad but as soon as I hit UK waters I just knew that relying on a Buddy for air was not a serious option. So I bought my son and I a pair of ponies, back mounted 232 3l as were already using 12l 232 stuff on A clamps. We dont expect to dive below 30m so it would get us to the surface if required including a safety stop etc. If we go twins later they will act as stages or I might just fill it wth 100% 02 for emergency use above water.
We are happy with ours as back mounted and inverted means we can regulate the gas if it free flows and the weight doesnt cause any balance problems. I doubt if you'll get any definite answer just a series of options and info that will allow you to make an informed decision. For less than 30m I think a pony is a good way to go, it avoids too much complication, it makes transport of gas fairly easy for 2 people and it doesnt cost the Earth, personal opinion only and I'm sure others might suggest twinning up. Either way works if you are looking at redundancy and that's definitely a sensible thing to do.

HTH
Matt

[Gavin Yates]

<font color='#000F22'>My view would be:-

If you want to dive twins in the future(ie do deeper longer dives) then twin 7s are fab. Mine are 300 bar  and they're great and I've used them for short decos to 40m.

If you fancy getting a pony then it won't go to waste if you twin up - I'd get a 232 ali if you could as you can use that as a stage but a steel won't do you any harm either.

My preference is for side-slinging and always has been. You can switch it on and off yerself. And in a freeflow situation you could even breathe by turning on/off.

Also you could hand it off to a buddy or pass it up to the boat.

Whatever you decide getting redundancy is the main thing. How you achieve that is largely personal preference.

I don't use singles in the UK these days but I did plenty of great diving with a single and a side-slung pony.

Oh yeah - don't run inflation off it!! Please. If your inflation goes tits up then it's dive over. Inflate the BCD orally and abort.

[Mark Chase]

Hi,

I would sugest that a standard 3ltr would be the most cost effective solution and it is perfictly adiquate as long as you are not a big gas muncher.

300bar is costley and the weight diferance might make ballanceing the rig a bit of an issue fro back mount but John Guliver will probably answer that one.

DONT go 6ltr it is too big and not big enough. What I meen is its too big as a pony and too small as a stage bottle. 7ltr is not a bad plan if you are thinking of going accelorated deco in the neer future but you are again back to side slung to ballance the rig.

Inverted back mount is a good method but you need an expensive clamp and you have to make sure the regulator hose is long enough to reach your mouth.

Side slung has several advantages. You can run the rig gas on and see any leeks. Or run the rig gas off and be confident of reaching the valve in an emergancy.

You can unclip and hand off the whole unit to allow easy re entry on to the boat or to pass to an OOA diver

Its cheep only two clips a bit of chord, a kneck ring and a J clip about £10

Its good practice for stages

Hope this helps

Mark Chase

[Spike Jackson]

To give yet another view - I use mine strapped to my main 15l cylinder using pony cam bands with the pony valve-up. This is a very common configuration you'll see on uk dive boats but has disadvantages. There are two cam bands but the system as a whole is not 100% secure, also you can't access the valve if it free flows etc. However it is a convenient and easy way of attaching a pony and the free flow is only an issue if both free flow simultaneously. I find it a comfortable way of diving but I think the side slung option has merits too.
I am doing dives to 35m using nitrox and short (15 min) deco hangs happily with this system with loads of gas to spare. I don't use the pony during the dive, it is reserved for emergencies only (never used in anger in fact).

[John Gulliver]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Mark Chase @ Aug. 31 2003,18:05)]300bar is costley and the weight diferance might make ballanceing the rig a bit of an issue fro back mount but John Guliver will probably answer that one.

I have a 3 L x 300 bar steel pony, back-mounted and inverted. Balance is not a problem. Weight could be an issue but it isn't for me as the only time I have to lift the whole set-up at once is when gearing up on the boat (or shore). Otherwise, I can carry the single and pony separately, which is why I went for a single and pony rather than a twinset. A standard octopus hose is long enough to route under my arm. The dv is on a bungee necklace under my chin. A 300 L x 300 bar pony is too heavy for side-slinging – at least mine was. It pulled me forward and downward so that I was in danger of going boots up – very unpleasant! The advantage of a 300 bar pony is of course the amount of air – 810 L (3x300x0.9). That's enough to get me safely to the surface from any depth I'm likely to dive to even if I incur a few minutes deco.

[DanG]

Personally I dive a 3L ali pony back mounted with valves upwards - my reg hose isnt long enough for valves down but I can just about reach the valve when I'm not using a bcd.
I would suggest no going too cheap on your reg since you have to be able to rely on it to work in all the conditions you dive in.
If you do go onto twins you will still be able to use your pony, some people clamp in between and just behind the twins.
You will probably find that when you first use it you will flop over to one side but after a couple of dives you will get used to it and won't notice its there anymore.

[Mark Davies]

<font color='#000080'>I think you're going to get as many opinions as there are divers!

I've been considering this issue myself recently. After speaking with twins divers I am thoroughly convinced by their merits. You need to decide whether you want an entirely separate air source for bail out or just require redundancy for system failure. Of course, the belt and braces approach is the one suggested above - twins and a pony!

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!

Can you anticipate being in this situation? The answer to that should tell you whether you need a pony. A twin set alone would not cover you in this situation. That's why twin divers use the rule of thirds (i.e. plan to surface when tanks are still 1/3 full). Would twin 7's then be enough air for you, or will you need 10's?

It's a can of worms, ain't it? I know I've not been much help, but there seems to be no absolute answer. I hope that I have at least given you something to think about.

[gaz]

hi tiewrap,

when i got my pony, i was aked my a few members of my club if it was the right thing to do, the premise being that i'd probably end up with a twinset sooner or later. to cut a long story short, they were right.

However, for a lot of divers that don't want to arse about with twins and wings, a pony is a fine way to go.

For a SD doing 25~35mtr dives,a pony makes diving a lot less worrying as if anything does go wrong with your gas, you've got a spare reg that you know will work. I used mine with a technosub backet which is about £50 and a simple 232bar 3l tank, &nbsp;a cyklon reg and a button gauge.

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.

As you're in a club it's worth hasslng the members try and borrow their ponys and/or see if any of the club's newer techie divers are selling their old ponys.

I'd say it's probably not worth going straight out and buying a twin set just yet. Go out and do a load of SD style deeper dives with your pony and get happy with the depth first. - that's probably a debatable issue though, so you really need to do what you feel.

[Digger]

Well, we've already had the discussion a couple of times, but side-mounted is my suggestion.

As for the 6l possibility, it's not really open to you. I ended up with my sixes pretty much by accident, and they do the job for lots of different diving, but as Mark said, when things get more serious, 7s or bigger is the answer. Then again, my air consumption is pretty good, and the 6 will get me from 45-50 including a few minutes of stops. I don't dive to those depths without the twins now, but it's there as a backup to them sometimes. Certainly for some dives I'd have a 6 of air on the side as bailout for both twins regs going. Highly unlikely, but I'm so used to having a tank there it's not really an issue to take it along. And you never know when someone else might need it.

Anway, I'm sure you'll get plenty more opinions on this one, have you looked at Dom's site yet? He must have something about ponies and stuff. Link anyone?