TallahasseeRick
New
My buddy Charlie and I had met last weekend at the LDS before our dive. We got some fills and he was getting some repairs for some of his gear that didnt work, Im not sure what. We went out and had an absolutely great first dive, possibly my best dive ever. The hose for my second stage started leaking before the second dive. A new O ring solved that. When I backrolled into the water the clip for my fin strap fell off and sank. No spare for that, it killed the dive.
Now that I think about it, Ive seen a mountain of these idiotic little failures. Straps, clips, buckles and O rings seem to be the big offenders but Ive seen Charlie have a full blast free-flow failure on a dive a few years ago. He had a tank strap fail once, too. My other dive buddy James had his new computer fail on the first dive. He sat out a very expensive boat dive with a leaking SPG (no refunds for gear failure.) On the same trip, the strap for my mask came loose and my mask fell overboard. Fortunately someone grabbed it and someone else had a spare strap or Id have sat out, too. Ive been on about 10 boat dives and two other times Ive seen someone left aboard with a gear failure. Mark, another dive buddy, has problems of every sort, though he also dives a hodgepodge of used equipment. But another buddy, Chris, arrives with equipment worth three times as much as the car it arrived in, and he has some dumb failures too. Reliability doesnt seem to be strongly price related.
Ive been diving a few years but Ive only owned my own equipment for about a year (and I also admit I really shopped price for my first set of gear.) In the last year my new SPG has been sent back for warrantee service. Ive had to replace (supposedly new) tank O rings on my own tank and on other peoples tanks. The hose and then the hand piece of my BC inflator hose split and had to be replaced. The sewing that prevents the waist strap buckle from coming off came out, I had to re-do that. Other less important stitches have failed, too. The clip for my new snorkel broke the first day. My spear gun trigger fell apart. Ive had a stuck purge button on my brand new octopus that scared the **** out of me. My depth gauge inexplicably turned itself around in the console and I broke it getting it out. My pony bottle leaks pressure and the fill adaptor has a small part that I must be very careful not to lose because it falls out every time I use it. Im probably forgetting one or two other incidents as well.
Im now carrying a ton of spare parts with me because some little do-dad goes bad all the time. Last weekend was the second time my spares kit saved a dive, and it would have been the third if I only had a spare fin strap buckle (for the freakin BRAND NEW fins I paid too much for.)
Scuba gear has far too many tiny showstoppers.
I dive with 4 guys regularly, all just recreational divers but all covering the full spectrum of gear pricing. None of us seem to have gear thats all that reliable. Getting 4 divers with 4 working sets of gear through a day of diving without a problem almost seems to be the exception. Arraigning dive trips, I can often count on one of them saying No, I cant go. My ____(insert the name of some piece of dive equipment)___ is busted. I get totally nuts about it, they seem to just take it as part of the sport.
Rant over, but whats the deal? Does this ever get better as you work out all the bugs? Or should I just enlarge my spares kit?
Now that I think about it, Ive seen a mountain of these idiotic little failures. Straps, clips, buckles and O rings seem to be the big offenders but Ive seen Charlie have a full blast free-flow failure on a dive a few years ago. He had a tank strap fail once, too. My other dive buddy James had his new computer fail on the first dive. He sat out a very expensive boat dive with a leaking SPG (no refunds for gear failure.) On the same trip, the strap for my mask came loose and my mask fell overboard. Fortunately someone grabbed it and someone else had a spare strap or Id have sat out, too. Ive been on about 10 boat dives and two other times Ive seen someone left aboard with a gear failure. Mark, another dive buddy, has problems of every sort, though he also dives a hodgepodge of used equipment. But another buddy, Chris, arrives with equipment worth three times as much as the car it arrived in, and he has some dumb failures too. Reliability doesnt seem to be strongly price related.
Ive been diving a few years but Ive only owned my own equipment for about a year (and I also admit I really shopped price for my first set of gear.) In the last year my new SPG has been sent back for warrantee service. Ive had to replace (supposedly new) tank O rings on my own tank and on other peoples tanks. The hose and then the hand piece of my BC inflator hose split and had to be replaced. The sewing that prevents the waist strap buckle from coming off came out, I had to re-do that. Other less important stitches have failed, too. The clip for my new snorkel broke the first day. My spear gun trigger fell apart. Ive had a stuck purge button on my brand new octopus that scared the **** out of me. My depth gauge inexplicably turned itself around in the console and I broke it getting it out. My pony bottle leaks pressure and the fill adaptor has a small part that I must be very careful not to lose because it falls out every time I use it. Im probably forgetting one or two other incidents as well.
Im now carrying a ton of spare parts with me because some little do-dad goes bad all the time. Last weekend was the second time my spares kit saved a dive, and it would have been the third if I only had a spare fin strap buckle (for the freakin BRAND NEW fins I paid too much for.)
Scuba gear has far too many tiny showstoppers.
I dive with 4 guys regularly, all just recreational divers but all covering the full spectrum of gear pricing. None of us seem to have gear thats all that reliable. Getting 4 divers with 4 working sets of gear through a day of diving without a problem almost seems to be the exception. Arraigning dive trips, I can often count on one of them saying No, I cant go. My ____(insert the name of some piece of dive equipment)___ is busted. I get totally nuts about it, they seem to just take it as part of the sport.
Rant over, but whats the deal? Does this ever get better as you work out all the bugs? Or should I just enlarge my spares kit?
