Have you ever had to doff and don your rig while diving?

[CuzzA]

As I said, I have done this under water a number of times--never while wearing a weight belt. Glad to learn here that it is essential--otherwise I would never have known.

Who said they were essential?

If you wear integrated weight pockets, knock yourself out. Who am I to judge. I find with experience the minimalist and simplistic approach to diving makes the most sense to me. Consequently my harness is pretty bare these days.

 

[boulderjohn]

Who said they were essential?

The person I quoted in my post. Take a look.

 

[The Chairman]

Yes, I have heard that about having two tank bands.

these are pretty ingenious in their simplicity and for only $10.00/pair:

Cam Strap Tension Pads​

 

[dead dog]

Occasionally to squeeze under a ledge to grab a lobster.

This was/is standard practice in So.Cal. back in the day to get lobsters. Not safe but it worked.

 

[AfterDark]

Once long ago I became entangled a few feet from the surface deploying beach boundaries marking lines. The way I was entangled I couldn't surface or go back down. The water wasn't deep but it was a rainy day and I was alone, nobody on the beach. After using up ALL the air in my tank (found water inside the tank later) I doffed the rig and surfaced. The darn rig floated to surface! In less time than it took to ditch the rig I freed the rig from the line.

 

[TMHeimer]

these are pretty ingenious in their simplicity and for only $10.00/pair:

View attachment 453973

Cam Strap Tension Pads​

Wish I knew about them before the $100 on the Tank Lock.

 

[taimen]

The person I quoted in my post. Take a look.

No it was not me...

Consider this. A basic open water skill is to be able to doff and don your rig at depth. That is pretty easy for the brand new diver because most dive shop training facilities have their students wearing weight belts. Now, here's where I agree with his point. Right after training the damn shop will try and sell the student a weight integrated BCD. And yes, the student will probably never really practice the skills they learned using that BCD. Consequently when that new diver really does have to doff his rig at depth, say because he's entangled in fishing line, he may have a really hard time keeping his body with his BCD.

 

[CuzzA]

No it was not me...

Exactly, and no where did I say that or what John quoted tongue in cheek. I don't want to derail this thread, but you keep putting words in my mouth. Please stop it.

Everyone complains how basic open water diving instruction is watered down these days and then we hear basic open water skills are useless and shouldn't be taught. So which is it?

No need to answer the question. We all know the answer.

For the record, here was the original discussion that led to the creation of this thread.

Is this really a basic, essential underwater skill.
When you have most of your ballast on your rig, like most modern divers do, it becomes much riskier and easily causes more problems than solves. I have always been wondering why it is included in the basic training?

Yes. It is an essential, basic underwater skill. Being able to free yourself from line, netting or kelp is pretty important. Fixing your tank that may have slipped from the tank strap is important.

The purpose of scuba training is to teach people skills to safely handle just about any situation under water while diving without the assistance of an instructor or DM.

Although hand holding seems to be the direction of scuba. Maybe this is the future of diving...

View attachment 453813

I think it is more like a remnant (in early ow training). Underwater doffing and donning seems to be quite rare (and fairly advanced) problem solving tool in technical training. I do totally agree that if doffing and donning rig at depth is a primary problem solving skill, then the ballast needs to be in separate system like a weight belt.

Let's find out. Have you ever had to doff and don your rig while diving?

 

[taimen]

Everyone complains how basic open water diving instruction is watered down these days and then we hear basic open water skills are useless and shouldn't be taught. So which is it?

No need to answer the question. We all know the answer.

No, I really do not know the answer. And now you are putting words in my mouth too. There aren't any useless open water skills for sure. There are serious time constraints in ow instruction, thus some skills need to be emphasized early on, and others left to continuing education.
I personally think that the "watering down" of diving instruction is not a bad thing at all as long as novice divers continue practicing skills and do participate in further training. Building experience simultaneously makes learning much more efficient. Scuba does not make exception in this.

Now I do not use a weight belt, and I agree with you that learning this particular skill is probably easier to learn with a weight belt than without.
Still this skill is a bad reason to force people into using weight belts.

This was a fun poll, and both of us seem to find that the results support our own opinion.

I see answers from very experienced divers who have had actual need to doff and don underwater only once or twice in 30 years and 3000+ dives. These have been often in wrecks.
By far the most common reason seems to be a loose tank band, something thank should be remedied by using double tank bands instead of fiddling with equipment underwater.
I never meant to say it is a useless skill, but some other skills for dealing with entanglements could replace it in the basic course.

The real problem in my opinion is not "watering down" basic scuba ow instruction, it is watering down the "advanced level" instruction.
The problem is that for example PADI AOWD course is a joke, and to get real advanced level instruction in skills one often has to shop for courses from the tech side. Note that I am not located in Florida or other diving hotspot, where full time professional scuba instructors are common.
For myself, I see "basic training" to consist of some variants of OW, AOWD, RD and "intro to tech" courses taken during my first 100 dives. Solo diving course could be a good addition too, because most advanced level training endorses team diving over self rescue.

Watered down OW training puts people into water with surprisingly good safety record. Without that we would not have the industry, and opportunities it creates for diving.

 

[woodcarver]

Our OW class had a mix of people using weight integrated bcds and people using weight belts. I thought they did a good job of explaining/demonstrating the differences. Even those of us with integrated systems put on a weight belt a couple times in the pool to see how they worked.
The d&d was done with whichever system each diver was using. When I answered the poll, I read it wrong I think and said no. I have taken my bcd off in shallow, less than 20', water a couple times to adjust tank level working on trim. Also had her take hers off once for the same reason. Both are integrated systems and neither of us had a problem.
While we have never had an issue at any depth that warranted taking it off, I can see the potential and do think it's a skill that should be taught. Since it appears that a lot of people never take another class after OW, it makes sense to teach it in the one class everyone takes.