Like I said.... I call BS on 95% of these claims.
I hear it all the time on the internet, or in the bar... but never see it being practiced in the water....
I don't know your skill as a diver, only your claims on the Internet.
I don't understand your point about people practicing and maintaining that skill.
The point being.... they don't. But they'll contentedly rely upon it (in theory) as a means to avoid wearing an 'uncool' dual-bladder wing. Skills are perishable... even even IF this was taught in training, it isn't on many dives (1?) and then never repeated. Basically... it's not a reliable skill. People gamble on never having a wing failure... or if so, hope they can muddle through an ascent ok... which is hardly an appropriate technical diving mindset.
You're an instructor, of course the people you see suck at making proper ascents during decompression. I would hope that by the time you were done instructing them, they would not suck at making proper ascents to decompression stops.
Yes...and students conduct proper ascents
using their wing on every dive... hence the improvement. They don't use a lift-bag... hence no skill development for that.
Is there one agency that supports lift-bags for redundancy that actually mandates one (or more!?) practice ascents using this method in training?
As for an incapacitated buddy, well that's entirely situational, however I'm not going to try and hold onto an incapacitated buddy for an hours worth of deco stops. That's just silly. Bent is better than dead. Send them up and let the Coasties take them.
Note:
Incapacitated. That can mean a lot of things... Cramp? IBCD? Blown ear-drum? Environmental or marine life injury?
Now I'm curious how many dives where you've had your primary AND redundant source of inflation fail, while at the same time using an SMB for buoyancy, shooting a bag, and ascending with your incapacitated buddy, while descending on a 900m wall. I feel like you may be exaggerating a touch.
Let's not be pedantic. I was giving examples of a plethora of scenarios that could significantly undermine an attempt to ascend via lift-bag. Stuff that can be handled on a wing, but not whilst having to deploy, fill, hold and control a lift-bag. Don't be inane to suggest I was stating they'd all happen simultaneously. I have sufficient doubts of 95% people handling a single problem whilst ascending on a lift bag..... I don't need to go overboard.
As for a wing blowing out, that's why I have redundancy....by way of my drysuit....and I'm properly weighted so that I can easily account for any rapid loss of buoyancy.
If I read your bio correctly, you're only trained to ER level? So you've not really got the experience to talk about the weighting issues inherent with deep mixed-gas diving? Expand your horizons, because the debate isn't limited to the reach of your experiences alone...
Regardless, it's not difficult to fill a lift bag.
...and yet it's killed divers with infinitely more experience and training than yourself.
....your theoretical situations are specious at best, insulting to technical divers at worst, assuming that no one is capable of dealing with those situations.
Nothing theoretical. That's your bailiwick, it seems.
Neither did I say "no one". I said 95%. That's an estimation, but it's based on more than a decade of full-time observation.
I very clearly stated that diving without a double bladder wing was silly because I dive dry was solely my opinion, but you decided you wanted to make it personal by calling me a plonker,
I very clearly ASKED if you were a plonker. You very kindly answered.
