Redundancy...

[Lou]

We always use ponies in the UK if we are deeper than about 8m. They will get you up from 30m-ish (depending on your gas consumption) on the day when your buddy has done a disappearing act (whcih can happen no matter how much you trust them - shit happens!). You can throw in a stop and not have to make a CESA.

They are neat and compact and adaptable to a range of configurations. If you move on to twins (not everyone does) you can use them for accelerated deco.

You can carry them abroad for those occasion where twins might be difficult, or you don't fancy the whole twin 80's thiing for a 20m dive.

They cost about £50 and you will need more regs if you decide to go twins anyway so the cost in trying it, or using it as an interim measure is not that great.

My set-up is side-slung - costs about £10 to £15 to sort.

Whatever you do, if you are deeper than you want to do a free ascent from either you trust your buddy, their skills and someone "up there" implicitly or you get redundancy.

HTH

Lou

[paul-gte]

just try this as an experiment, fully exale , now time yourself to when you need to breathe again , this is the time you need to find your buddy and get his AAS or bolt for the surface , or you reach for your pony reg take a deep breathe and thank the day you invested in a redundant air supply. at the end of the day you can weigh up the pros and cons and make a choice
cheers paul

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by Ratbag

I have been at various dive sites and rarley see people with these..At Stoney, most people don't have them, even the instructors but I guess they are mostly doing shallow dives...

At Stoney it appears to be fully kitted Technical divers or nothing at all...I never saw anything in Sharm, Mombasa or Gozo...


Patrick

Thats because Pony / redundent air supply is not taught at entry level. This is total madness. BEGINERS NEED PONYS. Arguably when you are totaly cool in the water and very experianced you dont need one as you & your buddys OOA skills are honed to perfection over the last 500 dives. Apart from that its a very good plan to get one. A large percentage of deathes in OW are related to low air or OOA situations and related panic.

The test posted above it spot on. Do you realy realy want to know what it would be like to have a regulatiour 1st stage failure, or OOA. You have to honist with your self and not cheet. During the dive you leed and (as every one does) at that point when you stoped to look at somthing & think I wonder where my buddy is, breath out, take your reg out of your mouth, find your buddy, fin over to him get his attention, signal OOA, get his gas supply in your mouth, purge the reg and breath in.

Takeing a gob ful of air and holding your breath to do this exercise is a waste of time and proves nothing. In the real event you will have no air in your lungs. I can do 1min 45 seconds on a breath hold I can do about 18 seconds having breathed out. And thats good by most standards.

ATB


Mark Chase

[And]

Originally Posted by paul-gte

just try this as an experiment, fully exale , now time yourself to when you need to breathe again , this is the time you need to find your buddy and get his AAS or bolt for the surface , or you reach for your pony reg take a deep breathe and thank the day you invested in a redundant air supply. at the end of the day you can weigh up the pros and cons and make a choice
cheers paul

Don't think so mate. The reg will start to give less gas over a number of breaths, giving three or four breaths for you to signal your ever alert buddy . The only time you have very little notice is when the valve is closed, like on a valve drill, and yes, I have tried it.

When considering a pony, you need to examine what kind of diving you do and what problems the ponmy solves. Then look at what problems a pony creates, as with everything in life there is a cost and a benefit.

Are you going to run out of gas? No, not if you have been monitoring it properly, which is basic stuff. Your buddy is also monitoring your gas right?

Is gas going to leak from your tank without you knowing? It may do but your buddy should also be checking you out to ensure everything is OK and a bubble check at the beginning of the dive prevents most problems.

Freeflows. Well, having decent regs is a must, and some pre dive care is all thats really required in the UK. Don't leave cylinders in the car overnight, don't expire into the reg at the surface, only inspire, that kind of thing. If your main reg freeflows then you have little chance of finding a reg clipped somewhere with all of them bubbles everywhere. Go for your buddy.

Ponies introduce a whole set of problems for what is a very small benefit. You suddenly have to mess about with weighting to balance the rig depending on how you mount it. You now have to route another second stage and maybe a pressure gauge introducing problems for anyone who wants your octopus and also the chance of reading the wrong gauge (unless you choose difference colours, shape, brand, whatever). You now have another gas supply to analyse and monitor. The most common problem with a pony is breathing it by accident and 'running out' of gas after only 10 mins into the dive. This means you must take more care over kit config and pre dive preparation. Is it really worth it?

If, after considering this fully, you still decide you need one, then side sling it like Lou with the bottle turned off and the reg stowed on the bottle. This will mitigate some of the above problems, but it does not replace the need for a buddy. You should always think of them as your redundancy, and dive with them accordingly. Take care of them and invest time and effort in improving them and they will take care of you.

Finally, a lot of divers assume that because you are venturing deeper then you need a pony. That is probably one of the worst arguments I have heard. They are a shallow water solution. They do not have enough gas to deco on. They do not have enough gas to give you any time at depth to solve anything other than very simple problems. Your main gas supply is what governs the depth. It is because of this that the saying 'if you think you need a pony then you need a twinset' exists. If you are a rec diver rarely venturing below 20 ish metres then I would not recommend them. You are better off investing the money in a nitrox course, if you haven't already done so.

Hope that helps

Andy

[Simon TW]

I dive mostly in the Red Sea cos I live there most of the time. I allways have a pony and would not like to dive without it.

Every week we here about fatalites, any bit of extra kit that can make diving safer I'm in favor of.

I never really use it and hope that I never have to.

Why add extra risk to your life for the sake of a few quid.

[Mark Chase]

[quote=Nick Bown]

If you stop and think of all the situations when a pony may be useful, you may descide that you can resolve those situations without using a pony of that a pony wouldn't be so useful after all. The reasons I came up with when thinking about ponies are rescreational diving were:

1, Freeflow - Use your buddies octo and ascend.
2, Out of air - Use your buddies octo and ascend (and why didn't you notice earlier!).
3, Problem when you've lost your buddy - CESA (and don't loose your buddy in the first place!)
4, Tank valve failure - CESA (and how likely is this? Not very)

If its that simple why do so many divers die from OOA / low air situations

1, Extra weight on my rig.
2, Extra reg to find in case of an emergency.
3, Extra servicing costs.
4, Remembering to drain the pony periodically and have it refilled.

Extra weight yes

Extra reg debatable, I would get rid of my octo.

Extra servicing cost yes

Draining pony unnecessary as you will be practicing your OOA pony bailouts every 6 or so dives wont you? WONT YOU?

If yuo dont like Ponys for other reasions a H valve or Y valve is a perfictly good option.

However, I would strongly recommend some kind of redundancy if you are diving in conditions where buddy loss are likely

Like being a new diver with an inexperianced buddy or a buddy you dont know and trust.

or if you are in any kind of overhead environment (including deco). However, if you aren't at that point in your diving then don't worry too much about it until you get there.

Dont even think about it untill you have a twin set. A 3ltr is IMHO not big enough for these types of dives. I would want to see a 7ltr pony (stage) with a minimum single 15 and rule of thirds applied.

I feel strongley about this issue so forgive me if i come across as agresive.

ATB

Mark Chase

[Lou]

Originally Posted by And

Ponies introduce a whole set of problems for what is a very small benefit. You suddenly have to mess about with weighting to balance the rig depending on how you mount it. You now have to route another second stage and maybe a pressure gauge. You now have another gas supply to analyse and monitor. The most common problem with a pony is breathing it by accident and 'running out' of gas after only 10 mins into the dive. This means you must take more care over kit config and pre dive preparation.

If you use this argument you are trying to have it both ways. Either you are shit-hot enough to be confident in diving relying completely on your buddy, in which case none of the above should be a problem, or you are aware of your limitations and the above should still not be a problem. Stowed side-slung the reg is never going to be confused with your main and it doesn't need routing as it is stowed on the cylinder. The weight balanciing is pretty much no more than moving a kilo from one side to the other and if you dive, like me, with a pony all the time then your belt stays the same. I have to do more faffing to move from fresh to salt than to dive with or without pony.

Originally Posted by And

If, after considering this fully, you still decide you need one, then side sling it like Lou with the bottle turned off and the reg stowed on the bottle. This will mitigate some of the above problems, but it does not replace the need for a buddy. You should always think of them as your redundancy, and dive with them accordingly. Take care of them and invest time and effort in improving them and they will take care of you.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by And

Finally, a lot of divers assume that because you are venturing deeper then you need a pony. That is probably one of the worst arguments I have heard. They are a shallow water solution. They do not have enough gas to deco on. They do not have enough gas to give you any time at depth to solve anything other than very simple problems. Your main gas supply is what governs the depth. It is because of this that the saying 'if you think you need a pony then you need a twinset' exists. If you are a rec diver rarely venturing below 20 ish metres then I would not recommend them. You are better off investing the money in a nitrox course, if you haven't already done so..

There is a band in which ponies are useful. Below 8m then even with a lost buddy you can go straight for the surface without too much concern. You have been on a single tank and are almost certainly getting nowhere near any no-stop limits. Here a pony would just be extra fuss.

Over about 30-ishm I don't want to be on a single tank so again a pony wouldn't be much use (to me). Here I would move into twins. But in the 10-30m range there is a place for them. Equally a small twinset, or even straight into the larger set is a valid choice - if you want to make that kind of commitment straight off. Given my time again I would probably gone for a small twinset. I didn't though, and I have had no problems diving with ponies. We practise their use often and I believe that in certain situations their use would be a safer alternative than trying for an AAS on your buddy.

Cheers

Lou

[And]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

If its that simple why do so many divers die from OOA / low air situations

They don't. Where do you get that from.

BSAC reports more incidents involving bad buoyancy and smb use than OOA, and most deaths are attributed to solo diving or seperation. People diving beyond their capabilities, and outside their comfort zone, diving deep on air. From Doing It Wrong, generally.

Andy

[aclivity]

I started a thread on this subject a while ago and I got a similar set of reactions; I read, and re-read, and re-read again, and discussed it with some of my club (thanks Bloss!) and even tried out diving with a pony and twins (the latter in the pool).

After 2 years of diving on a single, this year I have finally got round to buying my own pony. This is even though I am fairly confident that I will be going the twins route in the next 12 to 18 months. I have enjoyed my dives more since having the pony - and my SAC rate has gone down (there's an irony there - now I have more air, I am using less). I know that the pony is not a 'get out of jail' card and I wouldn't be so brave as to use it to extend bottom times, but knowing that I have an extra source of air IN CASE of something going wrong and me being out of my buddys line of sight.

I thought long and hard about the pony setup, and in the end I didn't buy a pony package at a low price but instead went for the best regs I could afford. My reasoning was that
1) if I ever NEED to use the pony, I don't want any hassle.
2) If and when I go to a twinset, I want a good reg on the left post for the same reason.

There are some drawbacks, like more kit to carry and trim to sort out, but they aren't that much of a drawback IMHO.

So in summary, I'd say get the pony, do lots of pool / shallow stuff to get used to it, on a few dives practice grabbing the pony reg or even breathe it down on a shallower profile. You may decide later on to either leave it on the boat (for shallow stuff) or move on to twins; if so, see this as a learning / development step. If you don't move on or away from the pony, as long as you are comfortable with your level of diving then you have answered your own question.

I don't really subscribe to the opinion that a buddy is enough of an AAS; in UK vis s/he doesn't necessarily need to be very far away to be invisible.

Just my opinion. And Bloss, I will get a twinset one day, just not right now.

Andy

[ahar]

Ah the pony debate. I haven't read one of these for a long while !

I use a pony as a bail out to get me to the surface when I've lost my buddy and somethings gone wrong with my kit. Mines back mounted and inverted so I can get to the valve with the hose going up from my left to my right and bungeed round my neck.

For me, it's peace of mind and no one is ever going to convince me to ditch mine (except in favour of a twin set). It has enough gas to get me from 40m to the surface safely (with a safety stop) on a no stop dive (not teckie.... yet !). The UK viz, rather than depth is the big reason I have one - it's very easy to lose your buddy (usually momentarily) that the law of sod states that the one time you have a problem (lp hose blows, freeflow etc) is the one time your buddy has gone ferreting and you can see him (her).

Ratbag - Have a think through the diving you do and what you would do in certain situations and make the choice - I'm not going to get into any debates about this, especially with DIR divers. Already had this with the guys in the DIRDirect shop in portland over inverted backmouting of my pony - all I wanted was an SPG!