Doubling Up Tanks

[matt_unique]

I'm in the same boat, I don't do decompression dives yet or overhead yet, but I just built a set of double aluminum 80's, havn't dove them yet.

the reason I went for doubles is because

1. I want to eventually get into wreck, cave, deco, etc
2. that extra air at +100 feet is nice to have
3. redundancy, it came down to doubles or pony for me, doubles won
4. I'm a good sized fairly strong guy, double aluminum 80's won't be hard to carry around for me.
5. I plan on doing wreck training fairly soon, my double 80's will work fine for some wreck, some cave, and all regular ow ndl diving.
6. Not one person can give me a really good valid reason NOT to do double aluminum 80's pertaining to my person and the type of diving I do.

The only thing I see crazy about doubles is the cost, I also considered doing a single LP104 with an H valve or similar rig, double aluminum 80's in my eyes won over that.

I can't give you any advise on doubles divingsince I havn't done that yet, but on my quest for doubles I have ran into people that have two attitudes

"thats stupid, your waisting yoru time and money and have no buisness doing that"

and

"go for it, keep X Y and Z in mind tho"

I used a HP steel 120 with an H-valve and a LP steel 120 with a Y-valve for my deco procedures course. The LP 120 was the single heaviest tank I have ever seen. Crazy bear of a tank - unless I was diving where they could not fill HP I would never opt for LP steel tanks.

I could not imagine there is a good reason not to do doubles as long as you can manage the weight and cost is not an issue. Perhaps there would be some special cave applications where you need to squeeze your tank through a hole prior to passing through it with your body. On one dive there was a student who could barely get back aboard the boat in choppy seas with his doubles.

I like to point out to people who are transitioning to tech there are options in addition to doubles depending upon what you need.

--Matt

 

[paolov]

ever been to a deep deco dive and then realize that the plan you guys have been planning on EANX32 would not be available as the tanks are limited to the new students only, and that we just have to use air doubles. That was an experience. LOL

then upon the end of the dive, the Guy says, why did it take you guys so long at 20Ft when our plan was 15 mins only at 20ft. (we did a 45 mins at 20 ft. to be sure after a 15mins 150 ft. dive) to top it off the ballon i had had a hole in it. LOL, lucky i had two ballons hehehhehehe........ double LOL

 

[WaterDawg]

I would recomend you wait a while. 25 dives in a year is not much, get better with what you have and when you are awsome w/ singles look into doubles. They are way too expensive of an item to have if you dont have a purpose for them.

 

[Diver0001]

As your gas consumption drops through experience you may find that an 85 will be more than enough for any NDL dive... even using nitrox.

This brings up another issue to consider when using doubles: the potential for entering mandatory deco. If you are not trained in deco proceedures it would be unwise to do so.

So I would suggest that you continue to dive your tanks as singles while improving your gas consumption rate, take a nitrox class and get some more experience diving.

Then you might want to consider a decompression proceedures class. Experience with diving doubles may or may not be a pre-req. for the deco class you take depending on the agency.

For someone who aspires to take a GUE Tech 1 class a DIR fundamentals class is mandatory. The period of time between DIRf and Tech 1 would be spent doing shallow practices dives with doubles.

I'll just add to this that the money you spend twinning up can better be spent on diving and/or training at this point.

R..

 

[yoda4x4]

Thanks to all of you who have responded. I think I'll see how the money situation is and if I have the $$$ to spend then I'll do it. Otherwise, I'll just try to get my butt in the water as much as possible.

Thanks again,
David