CCRs do you want one?

[Digger]

and my reply wasn't exhaustive..

I don't doubt that people stay at MOD1 - but I still cannot get my head around people wanting to stick to MOD1 and not wanting to push the equipment and their skills further on more challenging dives by taking further training (eventually - a future goal).

Please - answer me the question - why would a RB diver stay at MOD1 - which I guess is sub 50 metre diving? I really don't know.. Its like buying a BMW M3 to drive to work for 20 miles of motorway driving each day.. not a good analogy - but you get my drift..

with regard to Rec divers using rebreathers - I'm in the wrong job obviously..

Don't forget that 90%+ of divers will probably never go beyond 40m. Their goal, their endgame, is to go for a nice dive on a reef in the Red Sea or something. They don't want to go deeper, longer, stiffer, tougher, they just want to go diving. No reason why rebreather divers should be any different.

There are millions of cars that can do 0-60 in 5 seconds, and how many of the drivers will ever ever ever come close to using the car to its full capacity? Almost none. Same with rebreather divers.

I strongly suspect that the vast majority of rebreather divers never get below 40m, and never do more than 90 minutes in the water. As the vast majority of divers never do either.

For me I suppose driving an incredibly fast car is also more dangerous, but some people choose that as their toy as well.

Digs.

[Scuttler]

I want one purely for the diving I want to do.

I enjoy the 30-40m stuff but I've experienced the 40-55m stuff so I want more of that and no doubt I'll want the 55-70m stuff in time.

I have however set myself a progression which involves Rec and Adv Trimix before I move to CCR. The reason being is that I feel that if I find having done Trimix that I'm actually using it then I know that CCR will pay for itself eventually. If I do Trimix and find that for whatever reason all my dives are air and nitrox or weak trimix then I don't have to waste money on something that I can't justify. Sure if I follow this route I'll have spent more money than if I had just gone out and bought the RB in the first place but I know that if I bought an RB tomorrow it wouldn't get the use this year.

[TerryH]

Well sometimes I feel I might get one, then I go and lie down in a darkened
room until the feeling goes away

TBH I cant be arsed. I've done tryouts on about 5 models so far and every
time I cant wait to go OC again.

Ok I can understand some very good logic for the 70m+ boys. That makes a
lot of sense, but I cant see any advantage for some who only use them
at recreational limits.

Seems the faff factor and the increased risk, just doesnt match up to the
type of dives TBH.

If we are using the car analgy, I suppose its a bit like spending £100k on
an Aston, just to do one weekly shop in Tescos. At least take the bloody
thing on a grand tour of Europe

[Kev]

I don't think so. The more I learn about them the more I think it must be a nightmare to dive them. I never say never though.

[Captain Calamity]

Spent tonight on the M2 in fabulous conditions. Had to come up after an hour, just 'cause everyone else was OC and we couldn't keep everyone waiting. Used about 20bar of dil, and had great fun picking through the debris on the seabed around the sub - lots of bits left from the salvage attempt. So, advantage number one and two - bottom time, and being able to afford trimix every dive. Oh, and number three - warm, moist breathing gas. The RB is so nice to dive that I won't dive OC given the choice.

Disadvantage number one - the hour or so spend building and checking the thing pre-dive, and the hour or so cleaning it afterwards. If you aren't the sort of diver who has the patience to spend this sort of time fettling the thing then forget CCR. Neglect a CCR at your peril.

I made the switch to CCR this year when I realised that my everyday diving was in the 35-40m mark, and my challenging diving was getting longer and longer into deco, getting deeper and pushing into trimix territory. Knowing that my future diving will be taking me much deeper it made sense to swap to CCR and not waste any money on OC courses and gas.

Reading some of the above posts is a reminder that some very good divers indeed have died diving CCR and there is no way to reduce this risk to zero, no matter how good and how careful you are. As was also said earlier you need to make your own decision based on an honest appraisal of your abilities and actual diving needs. For me the extra risk is balanced by the extra gas a CCR gives me at depth, and the clear head that "affordable" trimix gives me on extra dives. However, much as I love my CCR, if the deepest I ever dived was 30 something metres then OC would be a far more sensible and safe prospect.

CC

[Roobydoo]

I found myself in the right place at the right time for a real bargain on an Inspiration Classic. Sold all my tech OC gear to help fund it.

Since then, I have changed 'breathers twice more, going from Evo+ to now using a Sentinel.

Passionate about it all - but then living where I do, it would be rude not to.....

[mkhari]

Thats why the Posidon one seems like a less scary option as its 40M max - geared for the "rec" diver or thicko's

Score one for the marketing hype. Diving the Poseidon Discovery is exactly the same as diving any other rebreather, you still need to know your bail out and solenoid drills. I have still to discover how a 'rec' rebreather is going to kill you any slower than 'tec' rebreather.....

Perhaps the idea is because it is a 'rec' rebreather you dive it without bailout, while I wouldn't dream of diving my 'tec' inspo to even 1m without a bailout.

The 40m limit is down to the gas mix you use and the electronics, all rebreathers work the same way.

The only thing different about it is the way they market it, oh and the fact it only has two oxygen cells instead of three, oh and the fact it cost three times as much to dive than an inspo or an evo, or a KISS, because it uses Extend Air cartridges, oh and they've just had to recall all extend Air cartridges because of channelling, oh and the fact it is a design based on one of the oldest rebreathers out there.

[mkhari]

I'm really surprised more people haven't mentioned the point that made me get a rebreather. It simply allows me to have more time at the bottom, while not racking up too much deco time. I don't go below 50m, but I get to spend a lot longer mooching around at 35m to 45m.

Its not a depth thing, its a quality of diving thing.

The best divers I know, don't use rebreathers, they can happily dive to 50m on air, bimble around for ages and come up fresh as a daisy, remembering everything. Unfortunately, I'm not that good and I get narked, the unit allows me to do those 40m dives, remember them, and get long enough to enjoy them, while coming up with a total runtime of about an hour.

The other benefits are it costs me about £13.50 in gas (20/30 & O2) for a weekends diving plus about £8 in slime and I don't have to haul a twinset on an off a boat after every dive for a fill.

Saying that, it still scares the sh*t out of me, I guess the one thing you cannot afford to do on a unit is get complacent.

[Digger]

I'm really surprised more people haven't mentioned the point that made me get a rebreather. It simply allows me to have more time at the bottom, while not racking up too much deco time. I don't go below 50m, but I get to spend a lot longer mooching around at 35m to 45m.

Its not a depth thing, its a quality of diving thing.

The best divers I know, don't use rebreathers, they can happily dive to 50m on air, bimble around for ages and come up fresh as a daisy, remembering everything. Unfortunately, I'm not that good and I get narked, the unit allows me to do those 40m dives, remember them, and get long enough to enjoy them, while coming up with a total runtime of about an hour.

The other benefits are it costs me about £13.50 in gas (20/30 & O2) for a weekends diving plus about £8 in slime and I don't have to haul a twinset on an off a boat after every dive for a fill.

Saying that, it still scares the sh*t out of me, I guess the one thing you cannot afford to do on a unit is get complacent.

See I'd rather spend another half hour in the water and spend a bit more on gas than be scared shitless every dive

Choose the right gas, and you'll get out off a 45m dive faster on OC than RB. You're right about the pain in the arse getting twins off the boat, but then I wouldn't want to leave my unit on most boats overnight, it would have to be a pretty secure mooring for me to be leaving several grand of unit on board.

Digs.

[The Duck]

Yes I'd want one.

Twice this year one would have been "handy" - once when I ended up nipping over to the NDAC because the 16's had a mix in it that was too hot for the next dive, due to the previous one being blown out. The next one was the reverse, the mix was not ideal for a shallower dive after the deeper one was blown out (ok, so I did dive the gas but it meant racking up more deco than a richer mix would have given).

I've got a week of mix diving later this month (though some would probably do most of the dives on air or weak nitrox, it's not what I choose to do) and next month in Shetland I'm dreading the gas costs - though I expect the diving to be great.

I currently have two twinsets and keep thinking of getting a third to try to minimise the amount of gas that I either have to dump or use on dives it's not great for - with an RB I could get around this.

Would I suit RB diving though? That's the question. I like the simplicity of OC and the "chuck it in the corner for a week and then use it with a quick check to make sure nothings hissing or broken".