Incorporating SMB deployment in OW S-drill / Valve-drill

[chokolad]

Shooting a bag while sharing air is a final scenario in GUE Fundamentals class these days. It is essentially the end of checkout dive for any kind of pass. It is not taught as a part of S-drill though. In teams of 2 donating buddy shoots the bag and recipient calls deco. In 3 person team bag shoot can be handled by a 3rd buddy.

 

[WhiteSands]

Regarding the question on why air share is necessary in a valve drill its because I took the class in single tank configuration.

I was generally taught that you do not want to load the out of gas diver with anything beyond breathing and managing his own ascent. This is where diving in a team of three is really handy, because one can shoot the bag and the other can call deco; but if you have only two divers, the guy who DIDN'T run out of gas should certainly be capable of managing a bag and watching his depth and time.

I don't understand your sequence for the valve drill. We do not share gas during valve drills. If the diver is shutting down a freeflowing post, he should be able to do that quickly enough not to run out of gas; if he runs out of gas, you are now in scenario 1 again. If a diver has had to close a post for a non-fixable failure, the dive is aborted. However, he should now be capable of managing other tasks on ascent, such as shooting a bag or calling deco.

Shooting a bag is never an emergency procedure, in the sense that it has to be done RIGHT NOW. Solve the issues with gas first, because those are true emergencies, then put the team in order and start working on the tasks of your ascent.

Bag shooting was taught in Fundies, and in my Rec 2 and Rec 3 classes, we were definitely given problems where we had to solve a gas issue and then have someone shoot a bag. I've also had mischievous buddies set fun problems like signaling out of gas, making me donate, then having me shoot a bag, and look over and see my buddy now is missing his mask. Fun times!

 

[g1138]

Not having formal DIR or Fundies training, I think I might try putting my 2 cents in with just with one thought in mind, I think the donating diver should shoot the bag. In the event that the diver shooting the bag drops the reg from his hand
A) Donating diver will have the bungee necklace retain the dropped reg in reach
B) OOA diver may lose the long hose entirely; and in an attempt to recover, lose the bag

So out of these scenarios it's less risk for the donating diver to shoot.

Taking the OP scenarios in mind. This works for the S-drill; for the Valve drill I'm assuming it's a no-deco dive and your gas plan has an emergency reserve (ie. Rule of 3rds, Rock Bottom, etc). Which means there's plenty of time to manage donation, shutdown, then bag shoot with ascent. I don't imagine it's DIR's approach to plan a single tank deco-dive w/o stages, deco bottles, or doubles?

So for single tank it would be best to first have the air donation take place, then shutdown, then have donor shoot the bag for reasons listed above.

 

[TSandM]

Our single tank valve drill consisted of showing the instructor you could reach the valve and turn it; he did not ever want us to turn off our own gas. In fact, my one incidence of catastrophic gas loss was an unstoppable freeflow that occurred while diving WITH that instructor, and we established an air-share and ascended, and he prevented our third teammate from shutting off my gas. I'm not sure why -- it cost me a VIP!

 

[JamesK]

i wanna say I had to shoot a bag while donating gas in my fundies class. is that not a thing they do anymore?

As of last Friday it is still taught. We had to shoot a bag of while sharing gas, and also got an out of gas diver while we are ascending with the bag.


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[WhiteSands]

Not having formal DIR or Fundies training, I think I might try putting my 2 cents in with just with one thought in mind, I think the donating diver should shoot the bag. In the event that the diver shooting the bag drops the reg from his hand
A) Donating diver will have the bungee necklace retain the dropped reg in reach
B) OOA diver may lose the long hose entirely; and in an attempt to recover, lose the bag

So out of these scenarios it's less risk for the donating diver to shoot.

Taking the OP scenarios in mind. This works for the S-drill; for the Valve drill I'm assuming it's a no-deco dive and your gas plan has an emergency reserve (ie. Rule of 3rds, Rock Bottom, etc). Which means there's plenty of time to manage donation, shutdown, then bag shoot with ascent. I don't imagine it's DIR's approach to plan a single tank deco-dive w/o stages, deco bottles, or doubles?

So for single tank it would be best to first have the air donation take place, then shutdown, then have donor shoot the bag for reasons listed above.

Very good point on the dropping of the donated reg! I guess that trumps everything else.

---------- Post added October 30th, 2013 at 04:00 PM ----------

Our single tank valve drill consisted of showing the instructor you could reach the valve and turn it; he did not ever want us to turn off our own gas. In fact, my one incidence of catastrophic gas loss was an unstoppable freeflow that occurred while diving WITH that instructor, and we established an air-share and ascended, and he prevented our third teammate from shutting off my gas. I'm not sure why -- it cost me a VIP!

I guess there's been some deviation between the agencies. My single tank valve drill required signalling OOA, getting donated reg, checking donor's air supply, physically shutting down the leaking valve, then doing an ascent with all the stops.

---------- Post added October 30th, 2013 at 04:01 PM ----------

As of last Friday it is still taught. We had to shoot a bag of while sharing gas, and also got an out of gas diver while we are ascending with the bag.


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May I ask who was the one to shoot the bag?

 

[JamesK]

May I ask who was the one to shoot the bag?

On the drills where we are already sharing gas the donator shot the bag. On one of the drills when we were going up the ascent line and encountered and out of gas scenario the donator took over the bag duties. When it came to my turn shooting the bag I was the one who went out of gas during the ascent. I chose to run the bag and be the out of gas diver. I explained to my instructor afterwords when they questioned about it that I simply wanted to see if I could handle the task loading, and that I understood that it was better to hand off to the donating diver.


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---------- Post added October 30th, 2013 at 04:49 AM ----------

On the drills where we are already sharing gas the donator shot the bag. On one of the drills when we were going up the ascent line and encountered and out of gas scenario the donator took over the bag duties. When it came to my turn shooting the bag I was the one who went out of gas during the ascent. I chose to run the bag and be the out of gas diver. I explained to my instructor afterwords when they questioned about it that I simply wanted to see if I could handle the task loading, and that I understood that it was better to hand off to the donating diver. Until class I had never shot a bag or SMB, so I really wanted to pass load myself as much as possible.

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[rjack321]

I was generally taught that you do not want to load the out of gas diver with anything beyond breathing and managing his own ascent.

This ^^^^

Official protocol is that the OOA diver is not responsible for doing anything except keeping the reg in his mouth. Reality might intervene if he is responsible for shooting the bag and in mid-shoot discovers he's OOA. Getting gas to him and keeping him breathing is still priority 1, but he might want help untangling his bag

 

[rlynch]

OOG diver is just a passenger...Diver with the gas shoots the bag, calls deco, etc OOG's job is to stay out of trouble and breathing... Help where possible

 

[mruseless]

My Fundies instructor said that either diver should be prepared and able to shoot the bag, but if truly an OOG scenario then the donating diver shoots the bag and the diver on the long hose maintains a visual reference for the rest of the team and can run deco if he/she is not too stressed.