Equipment Failure Rates - real data?

[halocline]

I've been asking myself "why do I carry this pony bottle?" As a human, my answer is "because it makes me feel safer."

You just answered your own question. It makes you feel safer. Whether you are actually safer is another question, and you should feel free to answer it however you want. It's obvious you've thought about it quite a bit.

Personally, I don't believe that equipment failure represents a real danger in almost all situations where divers are diving prudently. That's because training and protocols exist to cope safely with loss of breathing gas. Accident analysis supports this opinion.

BTW, I do have a pony bottle, I have dove with it exactly one time, at least 10 years ago, and now I use it to fill tires and sometimes soak or test regulators. So it's still useful.

 

[Divectionist]

I played with the idea of a pony about 4 months ago, did all my research into components, then dropped the project mostly due to the additional hassle when I go on boat dives / the lack of need for it when doing shallow river mouth shore dives within easy CESA depths.

I've done about 20 dives since, with the pony option at the back of my mind for every dive, asking the question "would I want it right now?". A couple of days ago I finally started ordering the pony bits and pieces and picked up a bottle last Friday.

What changed my mind?

Most of my diving is done from RHIBs carrying 6-12 divers between 2.5 and 7.5km from shore in the ocean, with often unpredictable conditions and often reasonable currents at depth.
Being a holiday destination with a significant number of rent-all infrequent divers or very rusty locals, only 25% of these dives can be enjoyed with what I consider a 'compatible' buddy, that is, divers with up to date skills, decent equipment, care for safety procedures, good underwater skills. The sort you can depend on in a difficult scenario, and the sort you can equally take care without unnecessary complications should they run into trouble.

This is all the data I personally need.

No matter how unlikely equipment failure is in the case of my high quality, well maintained equipment, I acknowledge that it is a possibility. If I feel that I cannot rely on my buddy on a good 75% of all dives, then pony it is. Likewise, having the ability to attach the pony to them in case they have an OOA, is an additional option I like to have. On one of the boats I use a lot, I've seen the dive guide deal with divers bouncing up and down erratically at the very beginning of a dive, and on another occasion trying to make sense of someone sitting on the bottom in stupor out of anxiety without obvious external causes. I would rather not be attached to them in the presence of panic.

The verdict is that I want to be more self-reliant and have more options to deal with the situations I encounter. If you are lucky enough to always dive with a veteran buddy with great skills, it is a different story. In the end I am glad I jumped on the excuse to go down the utterly enjoyable process of researching and assembling dive equipment with a true redundancy benefit in my book.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that the pony yes or no question is best answered by everyone's individual diving circumstances rather than global data, even if it was reliably available.

 

[lexvil]

Other than a random free flow or two or a light flooding I haven really noticed and unsafe equipment in a long time, once better rubber compounds found their way into regulators the reliability has becomenear 100%.

The main thing about diving is to never become to comfortable with your gear, trust but verify, also don’t be afraid of change, try new ideas, new fin designs adjust things that adjust just to learn.