Diving Without an Inflator Hose

[certainmisuse]

David...

There's lots of things you shouldn't do and this is a primary example...

As a diver you need to know how to rapidly recover from an uncontrolled ascent...and just as important you need to be able to recover from a rapid uncontrolled descent...caused by being overly negative...either with task loading...or a possible gear flood...eg. flooded dry-suit...flooded rebreather...

You can't successfully do either by sucking from your reg...and manually trying to orally inflate your BCD/wing...before you know whats happening...you'll end up sucking when you should be blowing...gulping water...panicking...and you're in trouble...and all the while descending deeper and deeper...

On a lot of OW level wall dives...the bottom of the wall may be visible from the top...or it could be 6000 ft below...you need to be able to stay neutral for your desired depth...and not suddenly finding yourself plummeting into the abyss...

Ensure your gear is regularly cleaned...inspected...maintained and serviced at required intervals...if you start eliminating critical sub-components that you're afraid ''may fail''...you'll be naked and gearless in no time...

What ''experienced'' and/or technical divers may or may not be doing as far as specialized gear configuration is concerned...is not where your profile indicates you are currently at...follow your training...stay on track...

Best...

Warren

Warren, thanks for the response, but the types of diving you are describing are not what I had in mind for this. See, "very shallow dives" in OP. Plummeting to the bottom as you describe, for me, would abruptly stop me at around 25'. And I should say, with this information, if you still take issue with it, that's fine and we can discuss. That's why i posed the question, not so i could go diving tomorrow with an unfamiliar concept.

 

[uncfnp]

I'm having trouble following this post. In fact I don't understand it at all. I think what you're trying to say is "yes you can dive without the inflator hose, just don't connect it and if you do that you could plug the first stage port", but that's stating the obvious, which the Op already stated, but you're doing it in a rather obscure way.

The op ask if there would be issues and was considering removing the hose for shallow dives. I replied yes he could by either not connecting the hose to the power inflater or by completely removing the hose and plugging the first stage port. And since none of this involves removing the corrugated hose to the wing the wing would not be compromised. All obvious as you say but the op did ask. At least that is the way I read it.



I agree it is good practice to orally inflate the wing. Not sure though how intermittently removing the hose would simplify things or eliminate a significant failure point. Removing and replacing the hose from the first stage repeatedly may itself create a failure, damaged o-ring or threads, forgotten plug (yes I know none of this should happen).

 

[caruso]

The op ask if there would be issues and was considering removing the hose for shallow dives. I replied yes he could by either not connecting the hose to the power inflater or by completely removing the hose and plugging the first stage port.

Ok you probably just overlooked where the Op said exactly that in his first post.

 

[uncfnp]

Ok you probably just overlooked where the Op said exactly that in his first post.

Then think of it as validating the op’s thought process, with the exceptions noted. Why the drama?

I will not derail the op’s thread further. If you have a problem with me or my posts feel free to pm me.

 

[CT-Rich]

I’m scratching my head on this too,. Why don’t you just connect the power inflator and then not use it? You don’t have to disconnect it from the regulator and reconnect it repeatedly. At taking things on and off as where so you’re more likely to have a failure by changing the rig repeatedly.

 

[seeker242]

I really like the idea of eliminating failure points.

And what failure point would you be eliminating?

 

[caruso]

And what failure point would you be eliminating?

A hose.

 

[AdivingBel]

And the ability of the power inflator to stick while actually inflating. Still not sure how that's really different than not using it other than it's not physically connected to your tank/reg. Not sure how it would stick open/inflating if you just didn't depress it, but I guess it COULD happen. I guess if you were orally inflating and accidently pressed the wrong button... IMHO, seems like a lot of worry over something pretty commonplace compared to other things to be worrying about ...but hey...dive and let dive...

 

[Soloist]

I have had countless o-ring issues where the first stage hose connects to the inflator and occasionally a sticking inflator button, but I NEVER let this interfere with my dive plan. Depending on when the problem appears I simply disconnect the hose pre-dive or during. If you are obsessed with eliminating potential failure points go ahead and plug the first stage, but honestly you can easily resolve most inflator issues by disconnecting the hose and add air to your wing manually if/when necessary.

 

[ontdiver]

I'm with caruso on this one.