GUE gear config

[jadairiii]

...I’m still not sold on the long hose- and I think that’s ok. It wasn’t too hard to manage but it is more work than my current setup, and I like my current Atomic reg and SS1. .....

This is something you will not grasp the benefit of until you really do need to conduct a rescue. Good luck adjusting your bc with the power inflator in your mouth and breathing from it with someone on a (at best) a 40" hose and highly stressed (bordering on panic).

 

[johndiver999]

This is something you will not grasp the benefit of until you really do need to conduct a rescue. Good luck adjusting your bc with the power inflator in your mouth and breathing from it with someone on a (at best) a 40" hose and highly stressed (bordering on panic).

Do you have experience in this? I am unclear what adjustments refers to and how it relates to a rescue?

If you are not well practiced in the use of the air 2 yourself, then how do you know it will cause problems for a qualified and experienced user who may well have practiced ascents with the device frequently and has completed dozens of these ascents?

 

[rddvet]

Do you have experience in this? I am unclear what adjustments refers to and how it relates to a rescue?

If you are not well practiced in the use of the air 2 yourself, then how do you know it will cause problems for a qualified and experienced user who may well have practiced ascents with the device frequently and has completed dozens of these ascents?

I dove an air2 for many years as an ow diver. It is not an ideal choice by any means just as was stated above

 

[mariosx]

I recall hearing through the gravepvine a few years ago that GUE had started reminding their instructors to put due emphasis on the flutter kick, because (if I understood correctly) there was a perception that too many students were over-using the frog kick and neglecting the flutter in situations where the flutter might be more appropriate.

A year ago that I did my GUE-F class, it was made very clear (after some questions) that the frog kick is the default kick due to stability and especially energy conservation (=better SAC rate). Flutter kick and modified flutter kick was also introduced indeed with not very explicit analysis on where and when to use it. At the same time, it is left to the student to be a "thinking diver", and when I needed to change my kick to move fast towards position X, or during a cenotes tour passing through some narrow corridors, I switched it without any second (or concious) thoughts.

To me, it seems more of a diver issue than an agency issue.

 

[johndiver999]

Did you have trouble adjusting your bc on ascent, as well?

 

[Nemrod]

Do you have experience in this? I am unclear what adjustments refers to and how it relates to a rescue?

I think he is referring to adjusting air volume in the BC (buoyancy) while ascending and breathing from the Air II. Most BCs, wings and jackets, have a rear dump or multiple dump points. I rarely vent from the inflator hose preferring to be horizontal in the water, not head, up so it is easy to tilt to the side and vent from the rear dump. Some BC jackets may not be able or convenient as it is with a wing.

James

 

[Angelo Farina]

Could you define/explain what you mean by "efficiency"?

GUE teaches also flutter kicking, but indeed the focus is not on diving with strong currents and potentially different procedures and tools might be needed (for example DPVs).
To my limited experience, in all drift dives I have done and with currents high enough to force the captain execute maneuvers to catch some of the divers I found no issue with my jetfins, but for sure they might not be enough for the currents you are describing. All in all, GUE-F, as stated in the class description trains people on basic skill refinement from OW and AOW level, and optionally (drysuit, doubles, canister light). Nothing more, nothing less. I would like to argue that potentially diving in high currents necessitate skills and tools beyond that skope, as also ice diving, etc.

Some GUE instructors are also free diving instructors themselves, thus I am confident that I good chunk of them already knows the pros and cons of different fins and they could potentially give their takes on the appropriate fins in different situations, which ofc is beyond the scope of GUE training.

I am not sure how standardized procedures and propulsion is disproved as a universal concept by this argument. Standards could (and do) necessitate different procedures and tools for different type of dives within GUE or other organizations/agencies with similar emphasis on standards. To the best of my limited knowledge, GUE doesn't have procedures (yet at least) for diving in rivers, or high currents, etc, because it's not the target environment of the agency for conservation or exploration. On the other hand they have procedures (I assume) for cave diving against currents, which objectively have no trouble executing safely using jetfins, or other equivalent fins.

Could you also define what you mean by efficiency here?
Both look very streamlined for the amount of gear they need to carry. I am not sure about the value of such comparison. It seems to me that the 2 people in the picture have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT objectives and definitions of efficiency, which results into completely different equipment, procedures, and mentality.
In your opinion, where is the commonality providing a common frame that would validate such comparison?

You got the point...
Efficiency is defined as the ratio between the distance traveled (in meters) and the energy spent (in Joules), as a function of speed.
For a given diver, using a given set of fins and kicking style, efficiency usually shows a bell-shaped curve, peaking at an "optimal" speed.
Short and rigid fins (such as the Scubapro version of the Jetfin, in which the original Venturi boost has been almost entirely removed), with frog-style kicking, usually have a good efficiency at slow speed.
Flexible, longer fins (such as the original Beuchat Jetfins or the Mares Avanti 4) and flutter kicking provide higher efficiency and higher optimal speed.
Competition-style monofins have low efficiency, but their optimal speed is very large.
Deep free divers use very long and very flexible carbon fiber fins or monofins, employing dolphin-style kicking, which provide the ultimate efficiency at medium speed.
Different fins and different kicking styles for different tasks....
But it must be understood that in the efficiency-speed curve there is a third factor, which is the human factor: geometry of legs and articulations, muscular strength, capability of sustaining a prolonged effort, capability of controlling motion, attitude and hydrodynamic asset, etc.
In a finned swimming course the instructor and the student performs a number of tests, with the goal of finding the optimal fins for the subject, and the optimal kicking pattern.
It takes MONTHS, in some cases YEARS to refine a finned swimmer. During this long period the muscles grow stronger, the motion control improves, and hence the diver needs to change fins two or three times (generally going towards longer and/or stiffer fins, providing more energy transfer).
My experience as a finned swimming instructor was entirely club-based and not-profit.
I followed some students for many years, seeing their slow but continuous improvement.
This is entirely unfeasible in the world of professional instructors and for-profit teaching agencies.
After doing this for 5 years I stepped to become a "pro", working in holidays resorts.
I had to change from 6-months courses to 6-days courses.
Here I appreciated the benefit of standardisation over personalisation. Using standard equipment is just one ingredient: what matters is to create a standardised diving system, with standard procedures, standard skills, standard planning, standard thinking!
This is both safer and easier.
A standardised diver can be stupid, and still be safe!
But having seen before the much higher efficiency, speed and performance obtainable with not-standard tools and methods, I feel to be correct to explain which are the limits inherent in adopting a standardised approach.
Among the various standardised methods, GUE emerges as one requiring very strict compliance, providing specialised and optimised approach to a set of very specific requirements for tech diving as a member of a team in caves, wrecks, etc..
But these methods and standards cannot be optimal ALWAYS. In some environments or for some specific tasks the optimal solution is different.
In my opinion a good diver should possess both the discipline and knowledge for complying with the standardised diving approach, but also the freedom and fantasy required for developing "heretic" methods to be used in out-of-standard situations.
In some cases I was the DM who had to solve issues with customers who were rigid in their compliance to standards, not realising that they were in a completely different new environment, which required a different approach.
So I repeat my suggestion to the OP: it is very good to be trained within an highly standardised "system" such as GUE. But one should keep control of his choices, adapting them to the actual needs, which in some selected cases can require to behave differently from the standard.

 

[jjmochi]

This is something you will not grasp the benefit of until you really do need to conduct a rescue. Good luck adjusting your bc with the power inflator in your mouth and breathing from it with someone on a (at best) a 40" hose and highly stressed (bordering on panic).

I've experienced one before. We were towards the end of the dive, can't remember exactly but probably around 10-15m. We were on a liveaboard in Galapagos so diving in a group of 7 with no designated buddy pairs (my husband who is my normal buddy opted to skip this dive) and a guide. Zero visibility dive, super cold, we lost some of the group, so two of us decided to call the dive and indicated to the guide we were going to go up together. Halfway up my ad hoc buddy came to me with out of air signal and grabbed my SS1 before I can give him my primary. I indicated we should swap and we did, then locked arms and ascended normally, did our safety stop normally, and surfaced normally. There was a shoulder dump valve on my old bc which worked fine. It was not comfortable - I have a dive alert attached to my SS1 so the whole thing is quite stiff, and we were bumping into each other a bit, but I don't recall having safety issues. The OOA buddy was a dive instructor w >3000 dives (who still breathed his air dry...) so perhaps a less experienced one would present more issues. But then again someone super inexperienced / panicked would likely not be familiar with GUE either, if they tried to grab the octopus on the necklace wouldn't that be worse? Honest question - I am a casual vacation diver, mostly go on liveaboards, and have seen only 3 GUE divers in all of my trips so far. My SS1 with the new BC is not very comfortable due to differences in inflator hose lengths so I am rethinking it.

 

[johndiver999]

It is important to have the right length hose for the SS1. you might also benefit from a soft woven inflator hose rather than a stiff rubber hose. It doesn't have to be THAT comfortable, you are presumably going to use it relatively infrequently.

 

[Ayisha]

...I recall hearing through the gravepvine a few years ago that GUE had started reminding their instructors to put due emphasis on the flutter kick, because (if I understood correctly) there was a perception that too many students were over-using the frog kick and neglecting the flutter in situations where the flutter might be more appropriate.

That is essentially what Ed Hayes, a GUE instructor, said when he came to the St Lawrence river to teach a workshop in May. While he was teaching a propulsion workshop, he told us that the instructors have been asked to emphasize flutter kicks in Fundies and to ensure that students are executing them well.

...The flutter is a more powerful kick than the frog. GUE teaches employing the right kick for the situation at hand, and in many high current or cave flow situations, that will be the flutter kick.

That was taught in my Fundies course as well in 2014. We were taught that the flutter kick was for quick bursts of power, like against a current for a short time.

I found the flutter kick hard to learn, but the instructor persevered until I finally got it to his liking. We practiced on land without fins and in shallow water without and with fins, while he manipulated my feet/legs the way they should move. I finally replicated the movements and got the flutter kick. So I can say that there was definitely a lot of effort into every student learning the flutter well, in addition to the other kicks.