Can you reach your tank knob to turn it on?

[ChillyWaters]

Chilly, you've been given many reasons, you just choose to reject them. You keep stating that there are other responses that could be done.

Exactly. We don't NEED to reach our valves.

Sure, there are a million ways to deal with a problem, and thus I could give you a million skills we should learn, by your logic. I say, keep the toolkit small so we are VERY competent at all the skills within it, as these are skills that will save your life.


Anyways, my original rebuttal was because people said that this was a MUST HAVE skill. I'm saying it isn't. And my responses are in response to that. If I can solve the problem using widely used training techniques, then it IS NOT a must have skill.

- ChillyWaters

 

[JeffG]

Sounds like you might want to slip out of your BC instead of reach back? Not sure abut that. Would sip air on ascent be a better alternative?

and potentially let go of your BC and take your gas away from you? I like to wear my BC, thank you very much

 

[dherbman]

Sounds like you might want to slip out of your BC instead of reach back? Not sure abut that. Would sip air on ascent be a better alternative?

Your tank would be drained before you could make a safe ascent.

 

[ChillyWaters]

Your tank would be drained before you could make a safe ascent.

We are talking no deco dives right? No deco stop is needed.

I have a feeling you could make it -- or at least to your buddy. Otherwise you do have a redundant source of some kind, right? Otherwise, what would you do in a OOA situation?

- ChillyWaters

 

[Hank49]

and potentially let go of your BC and take your gas away from you? I like to wear my BC, thank you very much

Maybe you ice divers have that much air in your wing/bc where it would pop to the surface like a cork..or in the other case, sink like a rock ..but properly weighted, sane, warm water divers generally don't. Plus, you would have a hard time prying it from my hands if it DID try to get away....

 

[Divingnthedark]

I feel more comfortable in a free flow situation to take my bc off (yes, it happened once) and hold it where I can see the valve and turn it on and off quickly if I have conserve air while ascending. I'm not that flexible anymore to reach over my shoulder and turn if on and off if I had too.

Yes, a very good skill to have and the next one I would choose to use if I couldn't reach my valve by reaching over my shoulder. (Or if I had an inattentive buddy) I have practiced taking my rig off and putting it on the surface and underwater many times. I just thought a caution would be in order here for those who haven't practiced the skill and have moved from weight belt to integrated rigs... DO NOT LET GO OF YOUR RIG at anytime or you will most likely be on your way to the surface without your gear or air!! I also take my rig off if the water is not choppy for long surface swims as I prefer not to kick on my back and find it easier to get to where I'm going floating on my gear facing forward.

 

[radinator]

Sounds like you might want to slip out of your BC instead of reach back? Not sure abut that. Would sip air on ascent be a better alternative?

Why!?!! Let's compare.

Slip off the rig: You're probably moving your fins all over the place, silting out the environment so you can't see s**t. You are then pulling things around, messing up your trim and turning into a real charlie-foxtrot of twisted hoses and the like.

Feather the valve: Reach back and do it. Still horizontal, not tangling anything.

I had a (simulated) first stage free-flow this weekend in a class. I immediately went on air-share, and turned off the valve. Since we were simulating high-current open ocean diving, we had to get back to the upline to get to the boat, and would only do an open-ocean ascent as a last resort. Well, on the way back to the upline another teammate had a problem we had to pause to sort out.

Having turned off the freeflow, I still had air in my tank in case it was needed. If those pauses to help the teammate with his emergency took us (the air-sharing pair) into dangerous territory in terms of the air avilable, I COULD have gone back to my own tank.

You might think the situation was contrived, but it's not that farfetched. Start with a reg problem, and in the air-share someone's mask gets dislodged, so they do a bit of chaotic motion resulting in getting some line or kelp wound around them. Now do all that at Farnsworth Banks (SoCal high-current open ocean dive).

Again, it's all about tools in the toolbox.

You guys arguing against it seem to think it is this difficult-struggle-to-reach-the-valve battle which only has a small chance of success. It's not like that. With a little bit of practice you can reach the valve as easily as you scratch your ear. It's really a trivial matter, and when someone says that taking off the rig is a better/easier option it tells me that they've never tried both skills to compare them.

Edit: Just for clarification, all of the problems on that dive were simulated. Also, I didn't really turn off my air, that was another simulation for the class.

 

[dherbman]

We are talking no deco dives right? No deco stop is needed.

I have a feeling you could make it -- or at least to your buddy. Otherwise you do have a redundant source of some kind, right? Otherwise, what would you do in a OOA situation?

- ChillyWaters

"Safe ascent" by the loosest definition means 30fpm ascent rate with safety stops. At 90', that is over 5 minutes.

Here's a link to my previous post. Please read the quoted text.

I have a feeling you could make it --
- ChillyWaters

That's just scary.

 

[JeffG]

Maybe you ice divers have that much air in your wing/bc where it would pop to the surface like a cork.. ..but properly weighted, sane, warm water divers generally don't.

Depending on what I'm wearing it could go the other way. With my double 130's and my drysuit, I have no weight belt. If I took off my rig...it would sink fast and my body would shoot straight up.

In warm water with a single 80 and my 3mm suit I could probably take off my rig...but like I said before...easy peasy to turn my valve in a 3mm suit, so I still wouldn't take off my rig.

 

[TSandM]

I have a practical reason for turning your valve off in a freeflow -- a freeflow empties the tank very rapidly, and if you don't close the valve, you have to pay for a VIP when you take the tank in (BTDT).

ChillyWaters, you have decided to omit this particular skill from your toolbox, for whatever reason. Some of the rest of us have decided it is or may well be useful. I do not believe that the time I spend working on the valve drill detracts from my skills at other things (like air-sharing) where I also do a lot of practice. If you are only going to practice skills once every six or twelve months, perhaps you have to be very picky which ones you choose, but if every third or fourth dive is at least in part a skills dive, you can practice a lot of different things to competence.