Do you actually see people diving with pony bottles?

[Dan]

Why is that a bad practice? Seriously, I'm confused. I'm a big guy (6'5" / 260) and a relatively new diver. I am an air hog. When I dive at home I use a steel 133. My wife uses a steel 80 and we start and finish at about the same psi. When on vacation I usually only have access to Al80's. That means that I'm the first one out of air. I have seen on other threads 'experienced' divers complaining about having to call a dive early because someone is low on air. Isn't this an appropriate solution.

I have read through this post and have heard 'experienced' divers criticizing but know one actually explains why it is bad.

I think using a larger tank is not a bad practice, but using a pony bottle as an extension of your air tank is, if you are not a certified solo diver that can dive & manage the air consumption alone.

If you have a habit of using the pony bottle to extend your dive with your buddy & then your buddy is OOA at depth and you have emptied your AL80 at that time, do you think you can share your pony bottle with single second stage?

Perhaps @ReefHound has answer to why Fling Charter does not allow divers to do such practice.

Here is another old thread that talk about it:
using a pony bottle to extend bottom times?

 

[rek_diver]

If you have a habit of using the pony bottle to extend your dive with your buddy & then your buddy is OOA at depth and you have emptied your AL80 at that time, do you think you can share your pony bottle with single second stage?

Why would you think a diver with a pony bottle carries only a single second stage? I carry a pony + two second stage regulators and I sure am not the only one.

 

[2airishuman]

If you have a habit of using the pony bottle to extend your dive with your buddy & then your buddy is OOA at depth and you have emptied your AL80 at that time, do you think you can share your pony bottle with single second stage?

You use the stage bottle first, leaving whatever reserve your gas plan calls for, then switch to the primary -- not the other way around.

 

[2airishuman]

Why would you think a diver with a pony bottle carries only a single second stage? I carry a pony + two second stage regulators and I sure am not the only one.

@rek_diver I believe his point is that you can't both breathe off the pony at the same time because the pony only has one 2nd stage. If I recall your comments upthread correctly, that is your configuration also.

 

[Wookie]

Perhaps @ReefHound has answer to why Fling Charter does not allow divers to do such practice.

Here is another old thread that talk about it:
using a pony bottle to extend bottom times?

It was my rule when I owned half the Fling. I'm happy to see them keep up with it.
The Flower Gardens is tough diving, 110 miles from land and 2 hours by chopper if the Coast Guard will even fly. Dives are deep, 70-130 feet, currents are often strong, and 5 dives a day are offered. Many divers don't see the advantage of Nitrox, and therefore refuse to pay.

It is my philosophy that pony bottles are an emergency air supply for when SHTF, and are not an extend-a-dive kit. If you need more bottom time, get a bigger cylinder. I happen to have a couple of Beauchat 150's. That isn't how you spell Beauchat, but whatever. But emergency gear is to be used in emergencies. You don't set off your PLB when you get away from the boat and the boat crew sees you. You don't call on your lifeline when you get away from the boat, except for that one guy in Cuba, but he got way more attention than he wanted from the Cuban coast guard, but I digress. You don't get band-aids out of the first aid kit, because if you do, there won't be any there for the person who needs one. So you don't use your emergency air supply unless you are out of air.

My boat, my rules. It isn't my boat any more, but it's still my rule.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

@MaxBottomtimeYou make the leap that most scuba fatalities would be prevented if the diver watched their spg and their gas supply and avoided panic. This is an incorrect assumption- there are LOTS of things that cause diving fatalities that are ultimately labeled as drowning, including panic, but also including poor fitness, equipment failure, environmental hazards, and just plain bad luck.

Do you realize where you take the leap from fact to fiction?

Poor fitness is not necessarily a leading cause of diver deaths. If it was there would be thousands of diver deaths every year. Equipment failures are rare. Simple maintenance can lower that risk even more. If a diver is aware of his surroundings, environmental hazards can be lessened or even eliminated. Carrying around an extra tank is not a solution for not paying attention. I have never looked at my spg and been surprised. I don't put myself into situations where I could not get out without the gas on my back.

 

[Dan]

Why would you think a diver with a pony bottle carries only a single second stage? I carry a pony + two second stage regulators and I sure am not the only one.

That's good if you do that. But, getting back to the case I mentioned in my previous post, if you were an air hog & your OOA buddy in panic grabbing your pony bottle spare 2nd stage at 80 feet deep & sucking the air in you tiny pony bottle like a race horse, would you think you would still have enough air by the time both of you were back on the surface?

 

[boulderjohn]

I disagree with the last part of that sentence. I have not been trained in using a pony or read up on it, and my thoughts are just off the cuff, but it seems to me that a pony should not be considered as usable gas.

The key thing here is that a pony is just a gas cylinder and its intended use is one you can define during gas planning. If you want to use a pony exclusively for bailout, great. Many liveaboards and charters only allow that type of use. If you want to use it as a stage, there's nothing wrong with that, but you have to be mindful of your dive planning.

If you have a habit of using the pony bottle to extend your dive with your buddy & then your buddy is OOA at depth and you have emptied your AL80 at that time, do you think you can share your pony bottle with single second stage?

You use the stage bottle first, leaving whatever reserve your gas plan calls for, then switch to the primary -- not the other way around.

Just to be clear on the above series of quotes....

1. Diver A dives with a 19 cubic foot pony bottle which he intends to use only for bailout--something to breathe in case of emergency.
2. Diver B dives with a 19 cubic foot pony which he uses solely as a stage bottle to extend his bottom time. He carries nothing for emergency.
3. Diver C dives with a 40 cubic foot bottle. He starts breathing it as a stage bottle for the purpose of extending his bottom time. After he has gone through half of it (about 19 cubic feet), he stows the regulator and switches to his primary tank. This leaves him with about 19 cubic feet to use as bailout in case of emergency.

 

[2airishuman]

Poor fitness is not necessarily a leading cause of diver deaths. If it was there would be thousands of diver deaths every year. Equipment failures are rare. Simple maintenance can lower that risk even more. If a diver is aware of his surroundings, environmental hazards can be lessened or even eliminated. Carrying around an extra tank is not a solution for not paying attention. I have never looked at my spg and been surprised. I don't put myself into situations where I could not get out without the gas on my back.

I don't carry redundant gas as a substitute for watching my SPG. I carry it to mitigate the risk of equipment failure.

 

[Dan]

You use the stage bottle first, leaving whatever reserve your gas plan calls for, then switch to the primary -- not the other way around.

I was referring to him already emptied his AL80 & sucking on his pony bottle. This is a case of an air hog diver on warm-water recreational diving single AL80 with a pony bottle to extend his dive with his wife who is also on a single AL80 w/o pony bottle.