Diving Doubles Debate

[Tek Adventure Diver]

I have never understood why people think that you need alot of experencie to dive with doubles, Personaly, i had my doubles at the age of 15. My first 2 dives were bad, but after that, they were better then usual. Does anyone agree that to dive doubles you only need to beable to carry them, or do you think you need training.??

 

[SparticleBrane]

I'd say you need to have a decent idea of what to do if you have a valve/1st-stage failure, which can be explained fairly quickly. One should also be familiar with valve drills.

My first dives in doubles were fairly easy, I thought. Double LP95s, trimmed out perfectly.

 

[Tek Adventure Diver]

Haha SparticleBrane, yeah thats what i used, there great, I overfill them to 3500psi, and i get 130cubic feet in each. Probley gunna fail hydro though.lol

 

[Packhorse]

Well I`m diving doubles for the first time this weekend. Hopefully Azza will be over the flu and be able to come along and give me a few pointers. If not then Im sure I will beable to work it out with out to much fuss.

 

[Mo2vation]

I have never understood why people think that you need alot of experencie to dive with doubles, Personaly, i had my doubles at the age of 15. My first 2 dives were bad, but after that, they were better then usual. Does anyone agree that to dive doubles you only need to beable to carry them, or do you think you need training.??

Some sets require a little more work to trim out, but I've dived 5 different sets over the last 4-ish weeks, and it ain't no thang.

As to training - once you get the basics dialed in (buoyancy, trim) and have gone through 50 valve drills, can manage the gear, I'm confident I can manage the very, very unlikely blow out, failuire or buns-up situation.

The BIG thing is managing all this gas. I mean, the tanks and the gymnastics of managing them is just muscle memory and practice. Not training. I worked with an instructor, he made some minor suggestions to my current practice routine, and I'm off an running.

Managing all of this gas is where I can get into trouble. The "training" isn't for the diving, its for the dive planning. And for this, I can't recommend good training enough. I'm about to go from doing a couple of hundred sub-125 FSW dives a year to replacing probably 40 or 50 of them each year with 130 - 160 FSW. There is deco involved here. There will likely be an O2 bottle involved here.

The tollerances for planning will be much narrower for these 25% of my upcoming dives. This is the only reason I'm going for further training. Its not to actually dive the equipment - its to dive the gas.

---
Ken

 

[BarryNL]

I have never understood why people think that you need alot of experencie to dive with doubles, Personaly, i had my doubles at the age of 15. My first 2 dives were bad, but after that, they were better then usual. Does anyone agree that to dive doubles you only need to beable to carry them, or do you think you need training.??

Well, the main danger of doubles is that you can easily run out of no-deco time before you run out of gas. In these days when everyone has computers this isn't so much of a problem as long as you're regularly checking your computer.

Other than that, diving doubles without training is probably no safer than diving singles because you don't learn/practice valve shutdowns.

 

[Tienuts]

I have never understood why people think that you need alot of experencie to dive with doubles, Personaly, i had my doubles at the age of 15. My first 2 dives were bad, but after that, they were better then usual. Does anyone agree that to dive doubles you only need to beable to carry them, or do you think you need training.??

I never understood why some people I teach have the urge to breath in through their nose. Or those who flip out when they get water in their mask, swim like their on a stairmaster, or trash the reef by stepping all over it.

It's like anything else - some divers will pick it right up naturally, and others will need 20 hours of training to do it.

 

[lundysd]

I'll be strapping on a pair of doubles a little bit before 100 dives, and I think diving doubles is a great idea for novice divers (like myself, or even newer). If you can handle the extra weight and the idea of repeating valve drills on every dive, then the extra safety overcomes any downsides (in my opinion). If I could have afforded it, I would have thrown a pair of doubles on some time ago.

 

[Mark Vlahos]

Some sets require a little more work to trim out, but I've dived 5 different sets over the last 4-ish weeks, and it ain't no thang.

As to training - once you get the basics dialed in (buoyancy, trim) and have gone through 50 valve drills, can manage the gear, I'm confident I can manage the very, very unlikely blow out, failuire or buns-up situation.

The BIG thing is managing all this gas. I mean, the tanks and the gymnastics of managing them is just muscle memory and practice. Not training. I worked with an instructor, he made some minor suggestions to my current practice routine, and I'm off an running.

Managing all of this gas is where I can get into trouble. The "training" isn't for the diving, its for the dive planning. And for this, I can't recommend good training enough. I'm about to go from doing a couple of hundred sub-125 FSW dives a year to replacing probably 40 or 50 of them each year with 130 - 160 FSW. There is deco involved here. There will likely be an O2 bottle involved here.

The tollerances for planning will be much narrower for these 25% of my upcoming dives. This is the only reason I'm going for further training. Its not to actually dive the equipment - its to dive the gas.

---
Ken

While the gas planning can be an issue on the first dive of the day, it will most likely not present you with problems until the second dive on the same cylinders unless you can get a top off of the gas. Same thing with that deco cylinder. Having enough back gas and deco gas to deal with a gas loss or your buddy needing gas can mean reserves that you might be tempted to use to extend the dive.

Education and disciplined planning make a big difference in these areas.

Of course any diver diving manifolded doubles with an isolator valve needs to understand what to do if problems arise. For some people mentoring may be enough, while others will be far better off if they go the instructor route.

Help dealing with trim issues will take some time, and of course with steel doubles there are issues dealing with redundant lift, wet suits, dry suits, etc... that all merit consideration. Sometimes it is what you don't know that will bite you the hardest.

Mark Vlahos

 

[Fort Collins Bob]

I always like to suggest a pool session first w/ doubles.. then the openwater.

This gives the chance to workout any issues before hand.

Gives a better openwater experience this way.

B