Cost of GUE fundies

[northernone]

No it doesn't.

There are divers who can get into perfect horizontal trim with a bcd. And there are divers who cannot with a wing and a backplate.

People need to stop pretending equipment is a big deal for trim and buoyancy. It's not. I was recently playing around with my bcd and was able to hold exactly the same position as I do with my twinset and one piece harness.

-not a boasting post, only an experiment to confirm a hypothesis-

Read this. Agreed. Stopped siding a shed. Went to my pile of borrowed gear for our students. Picked a random assortment of equipment I've never dove before (only criteria was a wetsuit that fit) and went into the lake (6 minutes equipment assembly and predive checks). Brought my camera along and kept a stick in frame elbows locked ( -+ 2 inches) neutral and trim for 5 minutes. No sculling or fanning.

Equipment :
XS Dracor enduto BCD
Dragor pursuit fins
FFM mask
XL 3mm hood
L 7mm farmer John bottoms only
Cave filled lp131 tank

It had been 1200 hours since my previous 'fun' dive in OC back mount, nothing fit and no predive weight check. The mismatched, poorly sized and outdated equipment made no difference in my buoyancy or trim.

To anyone using their personal experience or skills underwater to upsell gear to uninformed students please reconsider. Equipment doesn't substitute for technique.

I don't consider personal my mastery of buoyancy significantly greater than the standard I have for my PADI students upon course completion of the open water class.

Regards,
Cameron

Ps. After the foolishness I enjoyed an hour of actual diving.

 

[beester]

-not a boasting post, only an experiment to confirm a hypothesis-

Read this. Agreed. Stopped siding a shed. Went to my pile of borrowed gear for our students. Picked a random assortment of equipment I've never dove before (only criteria was a wetsuit that fit) and went into the lake (6 minutes equipment assembly and predive checks). Brought my camera along and kept a stick in frame elbows locked ( -+ 2 inches) neutral and trim for 5 minutes. No sculling or fanning.

Equipment :
XS Dracor enduto BCD
Dragor pursuit fins
FFM mask
XL 3mm hood
L 7mm farmer John bottoms only
Cave filled lp131 tank

It had been 1200 hours since my previous 'fun' dive in OC back mount, nothing fit and no predive weight check. The mismatched, poorly sized and outdated equipment made no difference in my buoyancy or trim.

To anyone using their personal experience or skills underwater to upsell gear to uninformed students please reconsider. Equipment doesn't substitute for technique.

I don't consider personal my mastery of buoyancy significantly greater than the standard I have for my PADI students upon course completion of the open water class.

Regards,
Cameron

Ps. After the foolishness I enjoyed an hour of actual diving.

Nobody is trying to upsell equipment to anyone... but it's a plain fact that it's much easier to get students to hover horizontally with a wing than it is with a bcd. So where it your video?

 

[MichaelMc]

@northernone, as some BP/Ws are cheaper than Jackets, I'm not trying to upsell.

I just see people claiming any gear change makes no difference on their trim, with no adjustment needed to their gear/weights. Could we consider this scenario, where I do not really care what the BC is.

Gear 1) (heavy head): heavy second stage, ultra low volume mask, heavy 1st stage, S72 mounted high, thin neutral material full suit, no weight belt, buoyant fins,. But it works great for you and gives you a very natural stick figure hover position with no motion.

You go to your cousins, and borrow their gear.
Gear 2) (heavy foot): titanium second stage, high volume mask, light 1st stage, ST72 mounted low, very thick jacket but no trousers, weight belt for that jacket, very negative fins.

Are you saying you could hold the same hover, with no change from the earlier arms and leg positions and no movement? Or just that you could manage to move some of the belt weight into the BC, raise the tank, and get it to work fairly quickly? As a diver with 500+ dives. Which I would buy. But its not the same thing as the gear does not need to be setup / tuned weight wise for you.

Edit: you bike ride all the time and have legs like iron, they ... very much like candy and it all went to their legs.

 

[northernone]

Nobody is trying to upsell equipment to anyone... but it's a plain fact that it's much easier to get students to hover horizontally with a wing than it is with a bcd. So where it your video?

The plan fact we disagree on but I do personally prefer a wing if I need to be back mounted. If jacket style BCDs weren't what was readily available to buy used inexpensively and to borrow from friends I would be offering bp/w setups for our participants. I have taught a few in sidemount and they loved it.

No video sorry, I was taking pics of a freshwater sponge on the twig.

Regards,
Cameron

 

[northernone]

@northernone, as some BP/Ws are cheaper than Jackets, I'm not trying to upsell.

I just see people claiming any gear change makes no difference on their trim, with no adjustment needed to their gear/weights. Could we consider this scenario, where I do not really care what the BC is.

Gear 1) (heavy head): heavy second stage, ultra low volume mask, heavy 1st stage, S72 mounted high, thin neutral material full suit, no weight belt, buoyant fins,. But it works great for you and gives you a very natural stick figure hover position with no motion.

You go to your cousins, and borrow their gear.
Gear 2) (heavy foot): titanium second stage, high volume mask, light 1st stage, ST72 mounted low, very thick jacket but no trousers, weight belt for that jacket, very negative fins.

Are you saying you could hold the same hover, with no change from the earlier arms and leg positions and no movement? Or just that you could manage to move some of the belt weight into the BC, raise the tank, and get it to work fairly quickly? As a diver with 500+ dives. Which I would buy. But its not the same thing as the gear does not need to be setup / tuned weight wise for you.

Edit: you bike ride all the time and have legs like iron, they ... very much like candy and it all went to their legs.

I'm in the market for inexpensive gear as I'm calling in way too many favors to outfit our program in borrowed equipment at the moment. If I come across bp/w inexpensively I will be delighted.

Physics is consistent.

I certainly won't debate weights would need moved to correctly trim the diver coming from equipment A. to equipment B. My observation is that weight placement needs taught regardless of equipment style and a student can quickly learn to adjust ballast for a variety of gear. Particularly useful when going from a full 3mm suit in a pool to a drysuit in the lake and again adjusting to a tropical location in a shorty in rental equipment.


... Perhaps we need a new thread for yet another bp/w vs. Jacket bcd discussion. ; )

Regards,
Cameron

 

[northernone]

Nobody is trying to upsell equipment to anyone...

Perhaps I am misinformed. Could I take a class from you in my jacket BCD without getting a sales pitch for the advantages of purchasing another style?
Cameron

 

[Ayisha]

Debating trim characteristics of bp/w's and jacket style bcd's is pretty off-topic in this thread since it's not only about the cost of a GUE course, but a bp/w is required for a GUE Fundies course.

Since we've started though, I'll say that my trim in my women's small back inflate jacket style BC was more horizontal than when I later switched to a small bp/w - only because the particular small bp/w that I have was way too long for me. I am a special case though since I'm particularly short, so probably almost no one else has that problem. It required drilling holes in both the bp and wing to allow the wing to sit lower so that it wasn't on top of my head. Once the equipment fit me better, trimming it out was pretty similar to the women's back inflate BC. It seems to me that many women's BC's are pretty much back inflates, and any back inflate BC, especially with shoulder blade trim pockets, will trim out pretty easily.

 

[beester]

Perhaps I am misinformed. Could I take a class from you in my jacket BCD without getting a sales pitch for the advantages of purchasing another style?
Cameron

Well you didn't check the video that I posted very well I think. Most of the divers participating in the workshop were not using a bp/w but a bcd. So yes of course they can.

When you take a GUE course (I'm not a GUE instructor) you'll need to do it in a hogarthian setup, because that's part of the holistic approach that is GUE diving. Has nothing to do with marketing or trying to sell equipment. Most GUE instructors are not selling equipment and are not affiliated to a diveshop.

 

[PfcAJ]

Why does anyone need to be able to hover in perfect fins with zero movement of their fins?

I'm not asking this to be difficult - I have done gue courses and have passed. So I don't think my diving skills are severely lacking. Can I couldn't care lass if I'm out of trim whilst doing my deco. And frankly if I'm doing a shut down in an overhead environment my fins moving matter not at all to me.

I'm sure you are a first rate diver and better than me. But I don't think we should turn scuba diving into Olympic diving looking at how synchronised we are and how pretty we look etc. Make it functional, safe and fun. the founders of dir were not able to dive in the way which is held as the a standard for open water divers now - its gotten ridiculous,

Well, since you asked, being able to be still is immensely helpful when diving a reef and looking at stuff. The fact that I can stop (and I mean stop) is a skill I wouldn't want to be without.

Finals kicking during a shutdown in a cave or wreck could just make your bad situation worse. Silt, losing the line, losing your buddy. All bad news bears whencyouve already got a broken piece of equipment to deal with. Being flat on deco just puts more surface area in the up and down direction. Buffers your tendency to move up and down, which is a good thing when you're holding a deco stop.

It's kind of irrelevant what the "founders" did. We know better now and clearly ow divers can do these skills. It's not particularly hard.

 

[HantsDiver]

Well, since you asked, being able to be still is immensely helpful when diving a reef and looking at stuff. The fact that I can stop (and I mean stop) is a skill I wouldn't want to be without.

What do you mean by stopping? If you mean maintaining your position in the water - I'd say it was important. If you mean you can do it without moving a fin then I think it's over the top. As a side note - I find being head down much better for looking at stuff than being in trim.

Finals kicking during a shutdown in a cave or wreck could just make your bad situation worse. Silt, losing the line, losing your buddy. All bad news bears whencyouve already got a broken piece of equipment to deal with. Being flat on deco just puts more surface area in the up and down direction. Buffers your tendency to move up and down, which is a good thing when you're holding a deco stop.

I often backfin slightly when doing shutdown drills. I don't disturb silt, and I don't lose anyone, or lose the line. It's perfectly functional.

I don't want to get into willy waving - but I've done a fair bit of deco in my time, and a couple of hours of deco is not that uncommon. I manage without the buffer when I chose to do so. As do most people. If you need the "buffer" I'd argue that you are not ready for technical diving.

It's kind of irrelevant what the "founders" did. We know better now and clearly ow divers can do these skills. It's not particularly hard.

What does it add? How is it safer? And what makes you think you know more than they did? I don't like GI... I think he was a despicable man who should be ashamed of himself. But I'll never know as much as he did. I'll never be able to think about doing the dives he did. And I wouldn't dream of saying I knew better than the founders of DIR.

As a side note - and not meaning to be pedantic. But on which open water course are you doing shut down drills in trim, mid-water whilst not moving your fins?