A need to rehash our discussion on primary donate

[tbone1004]

As most of you know, and likely agree, I am a firm proponent for primary donate. It allows us to prepare for the worst with a panicked OOA situation, gives great streamlining and hose routing, easy access to the secondary, etc. It is the obvious way to dive with the ability to always hand off what is in your mouth.

10 years ago we saw the start of a massive push towards sidemount. Huge arguments have been had about how to maintain primary donate with the Z-system, Toddy-Style, use of a long hose period, and we have largely settled on the "Bogaerthian" system with long hose on the right with a modified hog-loop, and short hose on the left. Half of the time we are on a short hose and have to come to terms with how we are going to donate that long hose to an OOA diver.
In the last 2-3 years we have seen a huge push with CCR where again, you can't donate out of your mouth since you're on the loop.

Reason this came up for me personally
For the last year or so, my single tank diving has been done with a double hose regulator where I can't practically donate out of my mouth either, and most all of my diving lately has been done on a rebreather. Nearly all of my diving is spent either teaching or in a cave. I teach in doubles, so that's not an issue, and when I'm cave diving, we have the advantage of lights so getting mugged out of the blue is pretty low.

How do I handle it right now?
On the rebreather and double hose, I have a long or long-ish *usually 40" in OW, 7' in cave* hose that is bungeed to the backplate or tank in sidemount, and is clipped off to the shoulder d-ring. With the double hose and rebreather, there is simply no way around it and primary donate is not an option. I have accepted that I have to have different donation procedures

• Do we need to re-evaluate whether it is practical to have two different forms of OOA donation practices?
• Do we just accept that these are "fringe" portions of the diving community and that accommodations have to be made to work with this kind of gear?
• Do we admit that BSAC was right about not pushing primary donate because it is not scalable? Not IMO to the point of going to secondary take, but since there is a 0% possibility of making it work on a rebreather, and no practical way IMO of making it work in sidemount, do we need to figure out a way to make it work?
• Does it matter that these "fringe" or "advanced" diving configurations have different protocols since primary donate is IMO the clear and obvious solution for single-hose backmount, and single tank sidemount diving?
• Do we need to re-evaluate the way we teach sidemount to put a larger emphasis on single tank sidemount? Primarily for those that enjoy the freedom of not having a tank on their back, but don't need the added hassle and complexity of the second bottle?

Hopefully this will spark some interesting discussion because I'm genuinely interested in seeing some of the other opinions out there

 

[rhwestfall]

Being one of the "fringe" recreational divers (double hose the majority of my dives), it merely means that I be proficient, and I HAVE THE DISCUSSION WITH MY BUDDY/TEAM....

Not much else you can do.

I really have no answer to the person who mugs me when I am on my DH. Thing is, I'd say (from my observations), the majority of instruction is still on the old "secondary donate/triangle" system, so it is still applicable.

 

[PfcAJ]

RB80 config has the long hose routed as normal, just under the loop. OOG isn't something that sneaks up on you with the RB80, but even if you need the hose in a hurry its NBD to unclip, take the loop out of your mouth, give the long hose, put the loop back.

 

[tbone1004]

RB80 config has the long hose routed as normal, just under the loop. OOG isn't something that sneaks up on you with the RB80, but even if you need the hose in a hurry its NBD to unclip, take the loop out of your mouth, give the long hose, put the loop back.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of trapping the long hose, but in your context, aren't you assuming no mixed teams? The odds of you having to donate when on a CCR in a cave on a big dive are basically 0. Similar understanding we have with sidemount diving, but since it is not scalable, is it a problem?

 

[PfcAJ]

I'm not sure I'm a fan of trapping the long hose, but in your context, aren't you assuming no mixed teams? The odds of you having to donate when on a CCR in a cave on a big dive are basically 0. Similar understanding we have with sidemount diving, but since it is not scalable, is it a problem?

I generally don't dive mixed teams with it. On the occasions where I do, the other diver is almost always an RB80 diver as well.

 

[The Chairman]

Do we need to re-evaluate whether it is practical to have two different forms of OOA donation practices?

Two? There are a number of strategies out there. Take Side Mount. I dive with two 5 foot hoses. Take it out of my mouth all you want or grab the one I'm not using.

It's important for me to discuss the strategy I want to use with my buddy prior to the dive.

However, lots of my diving is with others on Side Mount, multiple stages or bailout.

 

[Vicko]

I'm wondering, when on a rebreather you are donating from your bailout, not the lungs?

 

[tbone1004]

@The Chairman the two strategies being donating out of the mouth/primary donate, vs secondary donate. The options on how you deal with donating obviously greatly exceed 2. Hopefully we don't need to share gas since 5ft hoses are going to be really uncomfortable with someone my height....

@Vicko donating on a rebreather is from bailout, not from the lungs.

@PfcAJ unfortunately I have to regularly dive mixed teams, but in a cave or in technical diving I'm not so concerned with dealing with this since the divers are more highly trained. This was the point of a discussion that @Erik Forsberg and I had. It's one thing if we're dealing with cave/technical divers, it's another thing to bring out the discussion of dealing with recreational divers in the OW.

 

[doctormike]

Interesting discussion. I'm also wondering what the ideal configuration you think is for mixed CCR/OC teams, since I do that from time to time. Wondering about with DSV and with BOV. And I'm assuming that most mixed teams aren't going to be doing very deep dives.

If I have a DSV with a necklaced second stage on my deep bailout, do most people agree with another second stage on a long hose bungeed to my tank for donation?

 

[tbone1004]

@doctormike If I was going to commit to bmccr, I would 100% put a bov on there for a myriad of reasons. As of today, I have what is essentially a set of doubles with a CCR stuck in the middle. The regulators are set up pretty close to standard DIR style, so left post has a short hose that goes to a suicide strap that is "my" regulator.
Unfortunately since I have OTS lungs, I can't use a standard hog loop like @PfcAJ alluded to with the RB80 or any other breather with backmounted lungs, so I have my long hose bungeed to the side of my backplate and it comes up behind my right shoulder and down to the right shoulder d-ring. A bit annoying to deal with frankly, but it is what it is. On SMCCR or if I was using a standard backmounted CCR setup, I'd put the long hose on the right side sidemount bottle.

For mixed team diving at this level, again I'm not really concerned with a panicked OOA scenario where I get mugged, but it's more about dealing with recreational divers, and/or OW sidemount.
I know I put this in the technical forum, but I did that because I think it's more pertinent for the technical divers to discuss how we handle it, but also for those of us that teach to figure out if we really are teaching the best solution and practicing what we preach.