Question Intro to Tech

[BlueTrin]

Also it’s unfair on other students if one person shows up new on twinset/wing/drysuit while the other has already experience on the twinset.

It means that some of the class must be spent on just fixing the setup of one student rather than the ANDP bits.

 

[Wibble]

A major part of my ANDP+H course -- and also Normoxic Trimix -- was doing shutdowns and general related skills. The reason for that is simply that you *must* be able to switch to backup gas without causing more problems.

Someone on a single where there's a catastrophic failure is basically doomed -- stealing a buddy's gas is an emergency option, not the first option.

Or to put it another way, if you want to do technical diving, you have to do the skills and have to own the kit.

 

[azstinger11]

Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer to only learn one major thing in a course. By thing not talking single skill but more like singular focus? Probably not clear :/

So when we were still planning on doing OC AN/DP, we did ITT first. That way we could get familiar with doubles and dial that in first. That way when we took AN/DP diving doubles was familiar to us, and we weren’t also learning that, but could concentrate on AN/DP exclusive content.

Moving over to CCR, started at Air Dil no deco, for the same reason. We are getting hours and experience at the beginner level, so when we do Heliotrox/DP flying the rEvo is something we are comfortable with and can just focus on the new stuff.

Prefer those bite size chunks instead of rushing. But that’s just me and my 2psi.

 

[Blackcrusader]

One would hope that this would mean students would have more confidence and at least be in the right mindset of redundancy and sufficient gas.

ANDP means you're doing decompression. This by definition means there's a "soft" overhead between you and the surface; therefore you *must* have redundant gas supplies. A single cylinder, even a 15 litre, is a single source of gas and is generally quite limited in volume. A twinset or sidemount provides the redundancy and additional gas, especially in the bottom phase where the decompression gas is not available.

The other challenge of singles is what happens if someone rocks up with a recreational BCD? Is that going to be easy to clip the decompression stage?

As you know I've done deco training with BSAC back in the 1980's. It was standard for sports diving to plan deco dives on air. We did not dive twins we staged tanks at the dive sites and on the anchor line of the dive boat for our deco stops. Yes my recreational Scuba Pro Black has extra D rings for clipping on extra gear if I wanted to do that. Notwithstanding that some divers do short deco dives on a single tank.
It is really good to do the ITT to make sure I have all the other skills required for the ANDP before doing that course. I am not in a rush so will take the time to be prepared for the ANDP. Back twins of course I won't be using my Scuba Pro Black.

 

[Knabe189]

As many others have said, I think it depends on your comfort, experience, and instructor. I had a great instructor for mine and did learn a great deal even though I've been diving for almost 30 years. Sometimes taking many small steps gets you there faster.