Is there a valid reason for a pony bottle

[doctormike]

Which, of course, is EXACTLY what a pony is NOT intended to be used for...

But exactly what stage bottles are intended for! Just need to use a different term...

 

[BRT]

True, but at the same time O2 partial pressure is also much higher than in tires.

And tires do not degrade from the inside to any degree you can notice.

 

[BRT]

I've seen recommendations to dispose tires after 6 years, no matter how deep tread is; though I don't know about Dubai. Off topic, but I doubt that heat works differently in Dubai because the heat damage to the tires also comes from the inside, not from the outside. Most of the heat comes from flexing the rubber when the wheels rotate, not from the ambient temperature. The outside air actually cools down the tire at car's speed, even when it is 110F. The heat inside the tire, however, has nowhere to escape except through the rubber itself, but rubber is a poor heat transmitter.

Once again, tires get old from the outside in, not the other way around.

 

[lexvil]

I would like to nominate this thread for the annual inane award.

 

[lowviz]

@lexvil, at over 10K views to this point, more than the regulars are watching this thread.

To the others:

A pony (when properly used) is nothing more than one more tool to reduce risk. Realize that adding a pony increases your gear load and thus increases risk. You have to balance that with what it offers. Its benefits over the initial risk can be covered by other means. There are several good posts in this thread that attempted to highlight this.

The DIR crowd collectively sees ponies as a crutch. Their plan is that they can pick up with any of their brethren and have a good dive with minimal confusion. I applaud their buddy-centric approach, standardized gear, and standardized training. It comes as a package, you don't get to pick and choose in DIR. So it isn't for me.

There isn't anyone there for me when I have issues diving where and how I dive. A properly rigged pony is a valuable survival option for me.

I'll repeat myself by saying that a pony is something that should never be used. And neither are Band-Aids. But we buy them in advance because things go wrong at times...

 

[Bob DBF]

Maybe the detractors would have a different perspective if they dived in cold water and by cold I mean cold not the cool 50 degrees that some call cold.

Because one that does not feel that a pony should be a mandatory peice of dive gear on every dive, does not make one a detractor.

From my reading of this thread there are two sides, one believes that taking a pony should be determined by the needs of the dive, the other side feels a pony should be taken on every dive.

So far the pony on every dive side is the most vocal. I understand that from UK and other divers who are normally in real cold water and those usually diving on the edge of technical.

To the OP, should you still be reading:
There are valid reasons for a pony bottle. I believe it depends on the dive plan and ones risk tolerance and the agreement of your buddy/team. Good luck in coming up with an answer from this TMI thread.



Bob

 

[MichaelMc]

From my reading of this thread there are two sides, one believes that taking a pony should be determined by the needs of the dive, the other side feels a pony should be taken on every dive.

I'm not sure the ponies-are-useful side is saying every dive -- other than the freezing water folks, for good reason. Just it is a useful option for several reasons.

I'm for personal rec. redundancy. Yet I've dove very happily with buddies and pairs of buddies with no redundancy. They all happened to be well trained and we were shallow but I didn't suffer pony withdrawal angst.

The DIR crowd collectively sees ponies as a crutch. Their plan is that they can pick up with any of their brethren and have a good dive with minimal confusion. I applaud their buddy-centric approach, standardized gear, and standardized training.

This seems a good summary of some from the DIR side. Paraphrasing more -- if its rec non narcotic depths, we have such tight teams that ponies are just unneeded. You should to, so ponies are unneeded in rec depths. -- Well, not all divers on every scratch dive team have your training, so ponies are a handy safety rail.

 

[Frontpointer1000]

...NDLs are bright lines drawn through a gray continuum...

That thar is poetry, friend.

It Fascinates me that it is our culture that drives our perceived risk aversion. Traditionally we have been taught that it is safer for us to dive with somebody and almost dogmatically so. I certainly understand why it is difficult for some people to accept that there could be a safer way to dive. We’ve been religiously indoctrinated that the only safe way to dive is with a dive buddy.

Obviously there are other schools of thought at this point, however what fascinates me is that had there been one simple change in history, and the idea of diving with a pony was the appropriate way, then we all would have grown up with that idea and the idea of relying on a dive buddy would be ridiculous and crazy.

 

[Gareth J]

One of the earlier comments queried the available gas in a 3l Pony.
When I got my first Nitrox qualification (IANTD Adv Nitrox 1996), we started using our old Pony Cylinders with our Twinsets to carry 50% Nitrox (air in the twins), i.e. as small stage cylinders.
1 full 3l of 50% would be used for a weekends diving.
Do a normal dive, ascend to 20m, gas switch to the pony, ascend to stop depth, complete the decompression stops.
One cylinder would easily do both morning dives (the deep dives), the Sunday afternoon dive (shallow dive), we would swap to the 50% and run the cylinders down to 50bar, if we had gas left over from the Sunday morning dive.

In those days we weren't accelerating the decompression. The Nitrox was not part of the gas calculation. The dive plan was based on available gas in the twinset, ensuring there was sufficient gas to get both divers to the surface and complete the stops. Most of us had the 3l clipped to the twinset, inverted, with the regulator pressurised and the cylinder off until we reached 20m. I did two or three seasons like that until I did an ERD course. It was only after my ERD course, that I started accelerating the decompression and carrying larger side slung cylinders.

I did do two trips to Scapa where we really hammered the decompression, running up 20-30 minutes of stops on the morning (deep dive). We did the decompression on the 50% (from a back mounted 3l), again, we where diving air on the bottom and not accelerating the stops (having neither the qualifications or tools to do so). Most of those on the boat where doing the decompression on air.

NOTE - in this case the redundancy was the twinset, the pony was being used as a stage cylinder.

 

[Storker]

A pony (when properly used) is nothing more than one more tool to reduce risk. Realize that adding a pony increases your gear load and thus increases risk. You have to balance that with what it offers. Its benefits over the initial risk can be covered by other means.

</thread>

So far the pony on every dive side is the most vocal. I understand that from UK and other divers who are normally in real cold water and those usually diving on the edge of technical.

I'm not sure the ponies-are-useful side is saying every dive -- other than the freezing water folks, for good reason.

Although I'm not from the UK, I do think I qualify for membership in the "other divers who are normally in real cold water" club. Our local winter water temps are 5-7C (40-45F), but I've dived down to 3-4C (37-39F). Unless it's an ice dive in a lake, we hardly get any colder water than that around here due to the North Atlantic Drift. Still, pony bottles are very rarely seen, and the only ones I've seen in use have been hanging on solo divers or folks diving essentially solo, like DMs assisting a class.

Despite the fairly cold winter water around here, I have yet to see a 1st stage freeflow. 2nd stage freeflows are par for the course, at least after surfacing, but if you know how to handle them, they're usually nothing more than an annoyance. But then it's virtually impossible to buy a reg set which isn't cold water capable around here¹. Unless you buy online from abroad or are scammed into buying a useless used set.

There are so many other things that can go sideways while diving, especially during winter, that for me the risk of a catastrophic freeflow isn't big enough to make up for the extra cost, hassle, training and task loading which comes with slinging a pony. Others' MMV, of course, and it's a free world.


¹ The ones I see around in the shops are basically Apeks XTXs and Scubapro MK17/Mk25s