Hose length thoughts, questions and confusions....

[flybigjet]

So. I recently set up a new rig, and got to try it out the other day. Since I live in Colorado, that's harder than it really needs to be. The diving I do is Recreational only (the wife says "Choose marriage or Tech"), w/ the occasional light-zone wreck penetration. I've already figured that I'll run a longer (5'?) hose when I go to Truk again in a year or two.

The setup is Deep6 primary & octo regs and first stage. The primary was set up on a 40" braided hose for under the arm, with the secondary over the shoulder on a 20" hose on an octo necklace. The first stage has a swivel mount, which I've oriented low. Both hoses come out of the mount horizontally, but I do have the option of putting one hose on a vertical setup-- however, since I have the swivel mount set low (as opposed to mounting it high by rotating 180 degrees), the vertical lp port seems non-optimal to me. Both regulators are on 70 degree swivels.

First few dives, I I could tell that I really wasn't going to love the setup-- I swim with my arms crossed a lot and I kept having issues with dragging the 40" under my arm when I turned my head.

So, for fun on subsequent dives, I swapped, using the short 20" hose and regulator as my primary breathing source and putting the long 40" regulator on the octo necklace. Much, much better from a personal comfort level (and yes, I did brief my dive buddy/wife when I was changing what would be my "give-away" regulator.)

One thing I figured out was that 20" was a wee bit too short to use as a primary reg hose length-- it worked fine when the bc (a very old and well loved Zeagle escape w/ a horseshoe bladder) was deflated, but restricted looking left when on the surface and I fully inflated the bc-- I hadn't thought of that when I figured out hose lengths.

So, that hose needs to change to a 22"? (I'd consider a 24", but I like being streamlined, and I think two inches would solve the bc inflation issue).

Question #1: Am I violating some rule of safety or common sense to route my backup/giveaway octo under my arm with a 36" hose and hang it on a necklace? It's still in the "golden triangle", but I usually see people running underarm setting up a short octo on a necklace, with the primary "give-away" the one they're breathing on.

Question #2: If I go that way, is there any problem with shortening the hose length to 36"? I *think* it will streamline well, but I'd like to have a reasonable guess before I order hoses. I've been using a 40", but just don't like the way it streamlines-- and it pulls at my mouth even with a swivel.

I'm going to go grab a tank from my LDS down the road and play with it, but it's sort of hard to look at hose configurations when your'e the one wearing all of the gear.

I really, *really* wanted to love the "route your main reg under the arm, but also use that as a "give-away" setup", but I'm just not digging it. Conversely, I really don't like clipping my octo out "in the breeze" at the bottom of my bc or on a d-ring on my chest. But, I *do* like having the octo on a necklace.

Funnily enough, my wife really loves the underarm setup. Go figure.

So, any suggestions and/or advice are very welcomed!

TIA--

R.

 

[tursiops]

Carry a camera, then you won't have your arms crossed. Problem solved.

Seriously, the reasons to have your primary on a long hose under your arm (and your alternate under your neck) are several: (1) prevents yanking the hose out of your mouth when you turn your head; (2) makes sure the reg you are donating is working correctly; (3) makes sure your alternate is not dragging in the mud or silt; (4) eliminates the problem of the long octo hose getting snagged on something.
I wouldn't give up on it quite yet. Also, reversing the game and putting the long hose on a necklace is really just going back to the "old" way of doing things, and changing where/how you stow the octo. Is a necklace a good place to do that, especially if your arms are crossed and the OOA diver approaches from the side and tries to get at it?

 

[tbone1004]

rotate your first stage ~30* so the bottom port comes out at an angle and put the long hose on there. It will artificially lengthen the hose a little bit for you.

Bit out of focus and is like 6 years old, but should look like this. When you do that all of the hoses end up coming out much closer to the optimal angles for where they are going. You can also rotate it all the way over and put the short hose on the 5th port, but that's up to you. I prefer canting it all the way over, but a lot of people don't

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I'm in agreement with Tom that canting the first stage, so the end port gives the hose a head start down under the arm will help, and having the 20" hose on the side and angled toward the diver will give the 20" hose an assist as well.

Regarding Questions 1 and 2, there's nothing wrong with putting the octo on a bungee necklace. Just be sure it's loose enough that the mouthpiece will pull out of the loop, without the mouthpiece coming off. 36" versus 40", I'd stay with the 40" hose.

That said, a 5 foot (60") hose is more or less the norm for a recreational diver who wants to use a long hose as a primary regulator. However the hose routing is under the arm, then up across the chest and around the back of the neck to the mouth. The 70 degree swivel works very well for this as well. If you have a large chest you may want a 6' (72") hose instead.

The 20" hose will then just route to the bungee necklace and it'll be an ideal length. If you're ever really donating in an emergency, the slight restriction looking to the left won't be a big deal. The short hose will however keep the loop within the line of your shoulder where it won't snag anything.

 

[undrwater]

I hated the 40" braided hose as it floated a lot, and rubbed when I turned like you. I considered getting a rubber one, but someone had given me a 7' rubber hose, so I tried that and love it.

 

[flybigjet]

(A) Carry a camera, then you won't have your arms crossed. Problem solved.

Seriously, the reasons to have your primary on a long hose under your arm (and your alternate under your neck) are several: (1) prevents yanking the hose out of your mouth when you turn your head; (2) makes sure the reg you are donating is working correctly; (3) makes sure your alternate is not dragging in the mud or silt; (4) eliminates the problem of the long octo hose getting snagged on something.
I wouldn't give up on it quite yet. Also, reversing the game and putting the long hose on a necklace is really just going back to the "old" way of doing things, and changing where/how you stow the octo. (5) Is a necklace a good place to do that, especially if your arms are crossed and the OOA diver approaches from the side and tries to get at it?

First, thank you for taking the time to reply.

Second, I've actually thought a fair bit about most of the points you bring up. Here are my conclusions, fwiw.

A. "Carry a camera". I had one (Canon G9, Ikelite box & strobe). And a GoPro. Meh. Too much stuff to drag around the planet, and I found a lot of my "relax" time on the boat was taken up with "fiddling" with the camera, box and strobe-- checking seals, battling humidity/condensation, charging batteries, etc. Although I admit that I'm sort of considering a SeaLife DC2000 for Christmas-- it looks like it might be a 90% solution and should pack much smaller-- but I need to do a lot more research on that before pulling a $1400 trigger.

(1). Neither the long or short hoses (either being used as a primary) "yank out of my mouth"; mostly due to the 70 degree swivel I think. Although, I find that I get a bit of "drag" from running the long hose between my torso and arm. The swivel helps this, but I still find it rather irritating (which is sort of why I started this discussion to begin with).

(2). I've always considered donating a perfectly working reg as sort of a solution in search of a problem; a prudent diver will properly "preflight" his gear (and BOTH regs) before getting in the water and keep said gear properly clean, serviced and in good repair-- which means that you know that both regs are working when you start your dive (one of the reasons why I always full-stop deal with my own gear when diving off a boat). Can a failure happen between start of dive and suddenly needing a spare air source? Certainly-- but the odds are (imho) *really* stacked against it unless you smash the octo against a rock, use it as an anchor, drag it along the bottom, etc.-- and at that point, you really should be aborting the dive. And, there's also the consideration that you're giving away YOUR "confirmed" source of air, and are then swapping to a (theoretically) unconfirmed source of air. Helping your buddy is great, but you always have to remember that you come first-- giving your air source to your buddy and finding out that you've buffooned up your spare would probably ruin your entire day.

(3). Does anybody actually do this? I've maybe seen a few very, very new and inexperienced divers do this over the past 30ish years, but most people learn gear management pretty quickly. I've always either a) had secondary reg inline on my bc inflator (which I really loved, but eventually the negatives outweighed the positives) or b) stored a traditional octo on a quick-release either on my right hip or on a shoulder d-ring (which shoulder determined by length of octo hose.

(4). I agree-- which is why over the years I shifted my octo and quick-release from my hip to under my arm and tied off to a shoulder d-ring.

(5). After thinking about it for a bit, I think I'd consider the necklace to be "center of mass", with an OOA diver having a better chance of finding it from all quadrants than a traditional octo secured somewhere in the "golden triangle". 90%-plus of the (non-necklace) octo's I see other divers use are secured on the right hip, folded under the right shoulder strap, secured to the right shoulder strap d-ring or stuffed into the right gear pocket-- which I guess makes sense considering how most have their first stages set up. I would think an OOA diver approaching from your left would have more difficulty finding an octo secured on the right than on a necklace.

So, again-- thanks for replying; your post has given me a fair bit to consider, which is the whole point of the exercise.

So far, my thoughts are to move the octo hose to the bottom of the first stage, and then shorten it up from 40" to 36", while leaving it on a swivel. 36" is a common length for an octo, and the different exit angle from the first stage and slightly shorter length might make things more tolerable for me.

Failing being happy with that combination (and I'll give it a good faith effort), I guess I'll just go back to the "old-school" way of doing things, and either leave the octo on the necklace, or on a quick-release on my right shoulder d-ring.

I'll have to steal a tank from my local LDS and play with the angles and combination of horseshoe bc and first stage.

R.

 

[flybigjet]

I'm in agreement with Tom that canting the first stage, so the end port gives the hose a head start down under the arm will help, and having the 20" hose on the side and angled toward the diver will give the 20" hose an assist as well.

Regarding Questions 1 and 2, there's nothing wrong with putting the octo on a bungee necklace. Just be sure it's loose enough that the mouthpiece will pull out of the loop, without the mouthpiece coming off. 36" versus 40", I'd stay with the 40" hose.

That said, a 5 foot (60") hose is more or less the norm for a recreational diver who wants to use a long hose as a primary regulator. However the hose routing is under the arm, then up across the chest and around the back of the neck to the mouth. The 70 degree swivel works very well for this as well. If you have a large chest you may want a 6' (72") hose instead.

The 20" hose will then just route to the bungee necklace and it'll be an ideal length. If you're ever really donating in an emergency, the slight restriction looking to the left won't be a big deal. The short hose will however keep the loop within the line of your shoulder where it won't snag anything.

I'll try the first stage canting, as well as moving the long hose to the bottom of the first stage. But, I think I'll go with the 22" hose vice the 20"-- 2" shouldn't be much in the way of a tangle, and I'd rather have full range of motion than be restricted-- especially as you could conceivably end up on the surface, with a fully inflated bc, in chop or less than stellar conditions. Having a reg that will stay in your mouth as you bob and weave and search for the boat probably isn't the worst idea you could come up with. Of course, canting the first stage may completely solve this issue as well. I'll have to grab a tank from my LDS and play with it one afternoon. Sadly, since CO is a fairly landlocked state, I usually have to travel to have any chance of figuring things out. And if I use the LDS's pool, I have to get new hoses wet-- which gets to being sort of spendy if you aren't 100% positive things will work out the way you hope they will.

I've considered running a 5'/60" hose (and tried it once), but since all of my diving involves packing gear into dive bags and suitcases, I've always thought it would be a lot of trouble and effort.

Buuuuut-- if I did, two questions:

1. I'm assuming short hose and octo over shoulder and onto necklace FIRST, then wrap the long cord OVER the short hose when you pass it behind your head?

2. Do you have range of motion issues looking left with this configuration? I found that the long hose would drag back and forth on the back of my neck, and that would probably drive me homicidal after more than one dive-- i.e when looking left, you'd drag hose from left to right, and when looking right, the hose would float (for lack of a better word) from right to left.

When I tried it, I found that the hose was always a bother-- it was either ballooning out in front of me, or rubbing the back of my neck-- it was fairly distracting. In fact, it was distracting enough that I'd probably consider doing what I saw guides in Truk do-- bungeeing the excess hose to the tank so that it pulls free in an OOA situation, but is out of the way otherwise.

The other issue is that I want my dive buddy (i.e. my wife, the love of my life, and the Minister of War and Finance) to run roughly the same configuration for standardization purposes-- but that means twice as much hose to pack, yada yada. She's a short thing, so management of 5' of hose would be a real challenge that I could almost guarantee she won't like. Also, she doesn't like to fiddle with her gear (that's my job-- she *can* but doesn't like to)-- she likes the "long hose under the arm", so I want to stay similar to that for her sake. Although at 5'4", I think I'll shorten her up to 36".

Thanks!

R.

 

[tbone1004]

@flybigjet
1. correct
2. not really, however you should try the two other options first. With the long hose coming out the bottom, you can get the short hose and inflator hose aimed a bit more "forward" which cheats the hose length.

 

[flybigjet]

@flybigjet
1. correct
2. not really, however you should try the two other options first. With the long hose coming out the bottom, you can get the short hose and inflator hose aimed a bit more "forward" which cheats the hose length.

I think I'll try this, and maybe with a 36" octo hose on the necklace. It's old-school, but maybe most comfortable for me, which is sort of the name of the game, innit?

With the first stage cant, a 22" short and a 36" long (with swivels on both), I should be able to play around with both until I find one that I like. Either way, the longer hose is yellow, so it doesn't really matter much (I guess?) as long as I brief my buddy which reg to go for on each dive as I play around.

Thanks again to all. Now, to order hoses and steal a tank from my LDS.

 

[tbone1004]

I think I'll try this, and maybe with a 36" octo hose on the necklace. It's old-school, but maybe most comfortable for me, which is sort of the name of the game, innit?

With the first stage cant, a 22" short and a 36" long (with swivels on both), I should be able to play around with both until I find one that I like. Either way, the longer hose is yellow, so it doesn't really matter much (I guess?) as long as I brief my buddy which reg to go for on each dive as I play around.

Thanks again to all. Now, to order hoses and steal a tank from my LDS.

color is irrelevant, but I'd try primary donate with the 40" hose and alternate hose routing before you go back to secondary donate.
Try with the existing hoses now since it's free, and if you want to try the 22" and 36" hoses, ask your LDS nicely if you can borrow a hose off of their rental regs as they are likely going to have a 22" and 36" for you to try and if they're a good LDS, should let you do that for free