AL40 for redundancy diving single tank on deeper dives.

[The Chairman]

And with more gear and more danglies come more chances of getting hung up on something...

You're doing it wrong. A properly set up pony/stage should not be dangling anywhere. If you can't figure out how to do it, read more or get some professional help. I've never had a snag on my stages. Ever. I carry them quite often, too.

 

[PfcAJ]

I've never had a snag on my stages. Ever. I carry them quite often, too.

Or your "experience" is limited.

 

[The Chairman]

Believe what you want @PfcAJ. The point of rigging your stage is to eliminate snags while allowing for easy access. By your comments, I'm obviously a bit more meticulous in how I set up my gear than you are and I won't settle for mediocre techniques. You can either make snide comments or learn something. Your choice.

 

[PfcAJ]

Believe what you want @PfcAJ. The point of rigging your stage is to eliminate snags while allowing for easy access. By your comments, I'm obviously a bit more meticulous in how I set up my gear than you are and I won't settle for mediocre techniques. You can either make snide comments or learn something. Your choice.

Or you carry your stages on reef, sterile wrecks and Ginnie springs mainline where anything goes.

My guess is you don't really have that much time in the water with them.

Bottom line is that you can't get entangled on a stage/pony if it's not there. If you don't need it don't take it.

 

[The Chairman]

Or you don't really

Again, believe what you want or learn how to do it right. It's your choice. What you seem to think is impossible is simply not that hard. Your ignorance is not my problem. Rather than trying to learn how I do it, you're simply trying to exert some kind of cyber dominance. I'm not into that kind of puerile exchange.

Edit>>> Why do you believe that danglies are a good thing or acceptable at all? Why would you dive with your regulator or anything else dangling? I just don't get that mentality. There's just no need for that unless you just don't care.

 

[PfcAJ]

Again, believe what you want or learn how to do it right. It's your choice. What you seem to think is impossible is simply not that hard. Your ignorance is not my problem. Rather than trying to learn how I do it, you're simply trying to exert some kind of cyber dominance. I'm not into that kind of puerile exchange.

Edit>>> Why do you believe that danglies are a good thing or acceptable at all? Why would you dive with your regulator or anything else dangling? I just don't get that mentality. There's just no need for that unless you just don't care.

I don't think danglies are good or acceptable. Duh. But I recognize that virtually anything can (and does) get caught on line and can get hung up on whatever.

 

[The Chairman]

I don't think danglies are good or acceptable. Duh.

Then why are you suggesting that everyone has them or they must be lying about it? Either you're trying to appear to be techier than thou, or you simply want to stir the pot. In the hundred plus dives I've done this year alone, at least half have been with a 40 or 80 cf stage. Some are with an 80 and a 40 cf stage. I've been diving them since 2001, so what do I know? It's my belief that there's just no need to have danglies and I'm surprised to read that you think that it's impossible to dive without them. I prefer to eliminate danglies with proper techniques. You should learn them.

FWIW, the times I've carried the 80 and 40 cf stages are when I'm diving two LP120s sidemount. Figuring in the cave fills on the 120s, that's almost 500 cf of gas.

 

[Shotmaster]

We do reach a point where planning for every possibility overloads us with too much gear. I have never seen a complete failure of a maintained quality regulator in 43 years of diving. I have seen people ignore the warning signs and then have a major problem with one. One of the things I know from my experiences in other fields like aviation and the military is that life support equipment is preemptively maintained based upon number cycles or time or both. You can have brand new gear sitting and when it reaches the expiration date, it must be maintenanced/replaced. It is one thing to use old gear in shallow water and another at deeper depths as the risk is not linear. You can only have so much redundancy before it gets impossible, like having back up wings on a plane in case the ones in use fail. Improvements that make sense like dual bladders in a wing are great and provides redundancy that could be critical. I wish that our discussions wouldn't get so much like opposing camps on these topics. I used to dive doubles, then went to single 95s, I plan on adding a 40cf stage to my kit so I can extend my dive times without having to go back to doubles. I plan on using the stage in the first part of my dive, and then switch to back gas and keep the "stage" as a pony from that point on. I spearfish so I don't need any dangly bits causing problems. I'm interested in this thread to learn how other divers rig, as I don't believe in re-inventing the wheel.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

I've never had a snag on my stages. Ever.

I think it was the bolded section - this is not the Basic this is the Advanced section.... I think we are all in agreement in carrying a pony or alternate.

Where I was a bit in awe - is the bolded section... If you are working on a dive - hunting for lobster, digging for artifacts or just pushing your limits - in my experience you are going to loosen a hose or a reg and something is going to get caught at some point in time.

It just seemed odd that someone could claim - Never or Ever - me I generally don't believe folks that use definitive's like that - because they may have forgotten that one time...

 

[The Chairman]

It just seemed odd that someone could claim - Never or Ever

You're free to believe what you want as well. Safe diving is no accident. All of my cave instructors have tried to entangle me during class but none succeeded. I've seen them grab the unclipped reg on others and tie it into the guide line. I've seen them wrap a line around a fin. They caught people who were too broke to pay attention. I'm not one of those. You've got to pay attention to details if you're going to avoid the pitfalls and especially snags. Don't accept danglies as a given. Get rid of them. All of them. When I first started diving side mount in caves, I noticed that my hose would sometimes start to snag on outcroppings. I would feel the pressure build on that side, and quickly react to prevent it. Consequently, I stopped putting hoses over my neck, used bungees to keep the hoses flat to my tanks, created a double hose necklace, added two right angle hose adapters, added a 6 inch hose control bungee at the top of the tanks and went to a left as well as the traditional right hand feed for my second stage regs. This didn't happen overnight and when I started diving stages on all my cave dives, rebreather dives and any deep dive, I rigged them the very same way. They sling close to me, I take care to stow my first stages carefully and so far, I've never had them snag on anything. Ever.

Unfortunately, I see many people with a cavalier attitude towards their dive rigging cop a similar response. Here's reality: not everyone is careless with their kit. Some of us actually give a flying **** and take pride in diving responsibly and that includes diving clear of snags. It takes preparation as well as situational awareness. IE, if I am passing over a cave line, I instinctively pull everything closer to me, and use my other hand to keep the line at least an arm length away. On wrecks, I actively look for mono and other entanglements. My EazyCut is right there on my Shearwater strap and I often harvest hundreds of feet of mono rather than let it entangle me instead. It's a proactive rather than reactive approach. It's OK if you can't be bothered with taking such care, it's simply how I dive.

Now, that doesn't mean I've never been entangled. I can't tell you how much I hate spring straps in that regard. They've bitten me twice now, three times if you count my shoe lace getting caught as I'm trying to board the boat. I'm looking for some inner tube material to slip over them to prevent this. I've also freed a number of my buds from entanglements, in the cave, on the wrecks and even on the reefs.

But no, I've never, ever had a stage get entangled. Not the tank, not the SPG and not the second stage. Again, that's no accident. I'm sorry if that upsets your concept of how a tech diver should dive.