What are YOUR hose lengths and why?

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So, I'm reading your posts on this thread and can't help but wonder what all the talk about long hoses and deployment are about.
The long hose was utilized to solve the specific issue of traveling through areas too small for buddies to share gas from a single source.
For BM this was the perfect cure for this situation. SM has the advantage of being able to pass the whole thing off to your buddy.
So your buddy is OOA, you allow him/her either reg for the oh sheet moment. Once that is over with, unclip a bottle and pass it to them.
If they are SM you just need to swap bottles. There is no dire need what so ever for a long hose while diving SM.
This is one of the great advantages if diving SM independent doubles. So, if someone chooses to dive 2 short or long hoses, as long as everyone on thier team is aware of it, there should not be a safety issue. If anything, passing the bottle off is likely to be safer that being tethered by a single gas source.

Passing the bottle seems an easy solution on paper, but in real life, it's not.
First, you need to have the same kind of tanks, because swapping an AL80 for an HP100 for example will leave you quite clumsy when swimming. Second, while swapping, your buoyancy will be hard to maintain, add to that an OOA stressed diver who might not understand what's going on and also add a nice silty bottom and you have a perfect recipe for disaster. I don't even think of doing the same thing with people who have different rigs or with someone diving BM.

Compare that to the hassle of tucking a long hose on the side of one of my tanks which can be easily given to an OOA diver, it's simple arithmetics.
 
Never mind all those issues. The length of time it would take to swap cylinders is unreasonable compared to simply passing off a regulator attached to a long hose. That is precious time that is spent also breathing the limited air that is left. Pass the hose and get out of the cave. That's the quickest and safest choice.
 
Never mind all those issues. The length of time it would take to swap cylinders is unreasonable compared to simply passing off a regulator attached to a long hose. That is precious time that is spent also breathing the limited air that is left. Pass the hose and get out of the cave. That's the quickest and safest choice.

Even in the scenario of OW sidemounting,which seems to be becoming popular,do like you were trained in the basic OW course for air sharing,and in that case a short hose will work-but no need to swap tanks.
 
Even in the scenario of OW sidemounting,which seems to be becoming popular,do like you were trained in the basic OW course for air sharing,and in that case a short hose will work-but no need to swap tanks.

Add to that a wall dive and one of the divers drops a cylinder during the swap! :shocked2:
 
"Add to that a wall dive and one of the divers drops a cylinder during the swap! "

Well said. Most accidents are made up of a series of compounded errors not a single one.
I will stick to passing a hose long or short rather than pass the bottle.
thanks for the hose length information.
Bill
 
Add to that a wall dive and one of the divers drops a cylinder during the swap! :shocked2:

You are right. There are so many people who I read that will sidemount off a boat and have the cylinders over the side,and donn their tanks in the water-will be a potential for a lot of dropped cylinders or a traffic jam of divers all trying to get their cylinders.
 
I'm pretty sure a diver donning tanks on the side of a boat is going to a bit more calm than someone that just went OOG in a restriction, some distance inside a cave or wreck, got water in their nose (coughing), and needs to exit completely silted out. Any OOG is a stressful situation. We run reg donation/long hose drills all the time...do you run SM tank passing drills for OOG situations? This is not exactly the same as stage dropping/passing. What about in mixed team diving...doesn't it simply make sense to dive with a long hose? What if the SM diver doesn't have clips on the valve side of the tank as they only use bungees? How exactly is a BM diver supposed to hook up said tank?

There's a time and place for everything. One only knows the correct way to respond to a situation when they themselves evaluate the situation they just responded to. There are times where passing the tank works, there are times it doesn't. When wrecking....there are times I would pass the tank....there are times I wouldn't (times/places).
 
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I can't think of any time where passing the tank would be more beneficial than simply passing a long hose.
 
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