Identifying Stages By Feel

[jgttrey]

Pretty much captured it in the title. IANTD standards for CCR TMX require removing, swimming away and replacing stages in the correct places by feel (i.e., no looking at the MOD markings) to simulate recovering a cylinder when vis is shot.

What are common/best practices for tactile identification of your stages?

 

[swimlikethefish]

I have a buddy that uses zip ties. He places them on the hose near the second stage. Shallowest mix gets 1. Next shallowest gets 2. So on and so forth.

 

[PfcAJ]

To me that's a pointless exercise.

If you can't see the MOD marking, you can't see the depth, so you shouldn't switch to it till you can.

 

[Stoo]

Ummm, Shearwater and many other...

 

[happy-diver]

I know, MOD stickers in thick glove friendly braille

but really I think anything you can do by feel is a great idea

The amount of head cranking on a rocking boat by queasy people is ridiculous
when you could be taking in the view, singing. Make sure your gear is sitting right
pull on your fins, work your way into your bc, untwist shoulder straps, cummerbund.
Feel that they're right and do your waist buckle, chest strap, put your occy somewhere
throw your reg over your right shoulder then find your console in the jumble and clip it on

stumble around then Jump

without having to press your chin against your chest

and if you're rotund you can always accidentally pretend you
forgot your fins and have a willing minion put them on for you

and get rid of that zipping each other up business, it's a bit happy don't you think

and this dreck

The conspiracy of the hose lifters when there is a perfectly good shoulder dump
even DAN is in on it

and like the bloke looking for leaks who cant blow up his bc
because he doesn't have a tank

get rid of it all

 

[jgttrey]

I agree that the exercise is probably more about having something to do in the class, but I think the idea is that you might have no choice but to pick one to breathe off.

I should have been more clear. It's a CCR class, so we're really talking about bailouts and if you had to remove them to get through a restriction or get untangled, putting them back in the right place is a desirable thing in the event you have to bail.

The zip tie thing sounds like a good option and the numbering method seems to work. The important thing is making it fail-safe rather than fail-deadly, so that if a marker falls off, or you miss it, you don't mistakenly assume a rich mix is a deep mix. One for rich, two for intermediate and three for deep, etc., seems to do that.

 

[PfcAJ]

I agree that the exercise is probably more about having something to do in the class, but I think the idea is that you might have no choice but to pick one to breathe off.

I should have been more clear. It's a CCR class, so we're really talking about bailouts and if you had to remove them to get through a restriction or get untangled, putting them back in the right place is a desirable thing in the event you have to bail.

The zip tie thing sounds like a good option and the numbering method seems to work. The important thing is making it fail-safe rather than fail-deadly, so that if a marker falls off, or you miss it, you don't mistakenly assume a rich mix is a deep mix. One for rich, two for intermediate and three for deep, etc., seems to do that.

If one falls off the three zip tie bottle you’re back to a guessing game for which is supposed to have two and which one doesn’t.

Not good.

 

[jgttrey]

Yes, all bets are off if the markers fall off, so I'm open to better suggestions for sure.

I get that we're down in the weeds, geeking out on some details, but its SB and it's a slow afternoon....

My point about "failing safe" is that at least I'm not misled in a dangerous direction if one drops off. If I needed to bail and I grab a second stage with 3 zips on it, I know it's my deep mix and I'm not going to tox. If it were numbered the other way around, where deep was one zip, then then there'd be some risk that I grabbed a hotter mix that happened to have lost a marker. My only point in the observation was that whatever "tool" is used for marking, it is worth 2 minutes of thinking about what happens if it fails and whether it would mislead you in a dangerous way.

 

[PfcAJ]

Yes, all bets are off if the markers fall off, so I'm open to better suggestions for sure.

Like looking at the MOD label?

 

[jgttrey]

Like looking at the MOD label?

Yup, that's best, but not part of the "conditions" of this exercise.