Limits of standardization.

[SillyQuestions]

So the RB80 is standardised?


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[TSandM]

Yes, it is. As the JJ is becoming standardized. The difference between GUE and other agencies is that they don't see the risk-benefit ratio swinging in favor of rebreathers until the dives really need them. It's the same with sidemount. 99.9% of the diving done in the world can be done in a standard GUE backmount configuration, including the majority of technical and cave diving. It's only the stuff on the bleeding edge that requires other configurations -- but that diving does exist, which is why there has been a GUE rebreather, and there are now two setups, and why the training council folks have been playing with sidemount. Again, though, the most central concept of GUE is diving as a team. When you get to diving where you cannot function as a team, such as tiny, zero-viz sumps, the central concept breaks down, and therefore standardization may not be as useful.

 

[SillyQuestions]

Yes, it is. As the JJ is becoming standardized. The difference between GUE and other agencies is that they don't see the risk-benefit ratio swinging in favor of rebreathers until the dives really need them. It's the same with sidemount. 99.9% of the diving done in the world can be done in a standard GUE backmount configuration, including the majority of technical and cave diving. It's only the stuff on the bleeding edge that requires other configurations -- but that diving does exist, which is why there has been a GUE rebreather, and there are now two setups, and why the training council folks have been playing with sidemount. Again, though, the most central concept of GUE is diving as a team. When you get to diving where you cannot function as a team, such as tiny, zero-viz sumps, the central concept breaks down, and therefore standardization may not be as useful.

You can't have 3 different set ups (doubles, RB80, JJ) and define them all as standard.

There might be standards for them, but they're different standards.

"The central concept breaks down, and therefore standardisation may not be as useful" is a much better worded version of my post.

The philosophy is the same, but how you implement that philosophy has to change, and that is where rigid standards become defunct.


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[kdupreez]

People tend to lose forest for the trees.. When individuals take the the GUE principles as gospel and start preaching with their own interpretation. Like getting all religious about bolt snap sizes and dry or wet gloves..

Nobody in GUE leadership has ever said that side mount is the devils gear.. Some places you simply can't go without side mount or even no mount..

Same goes for the application of CCR and SCR..

Remember the last E in GUE says "Explorers".. The gear and technology are only enablers to help us achieve that.

Its not Global Underwater Backmounted Doubles Explorers..

We DO try to keep the core protocols consistent, with some modifiers for environment.

A great example is primary light handling.. I tec, you temp stow it whenever you do something.. In cave, it's always deployed and on..

Standard kit also says SMB, well, except in cave..

Using CCR and SCR tools does have some modifiers on gear and procedures, but the key is that those are standardised for the team using similar equipment.. Rarely on big project dives do OC an CCR divers dive on same team of 3..

Side mount is no different.. If GUE ever decide to incorporate that tool into the system for the bigger goal of exploration, I would imagine that majority of the standardisation wil carry over, but there wil have to be modifiers.. And the strength wil be in divers diving the same configuration using the procedures and equipment..

Equipment it's just a means to an end.... Don't make it an end to your means..

 

[SillyQuestions]

My point wasn't just about gear.

In no mount, zero-vis caves, all team diving protocols go to hell.

This is my point about the philosophy, keep it simple, redundant and safe.

Entering a no mount, zero-vis cave with another diver, no matter what the gear, and trying to dive with them in any capacity for a simple tourist dive, is over complication and unsafe.

Rigid adherence to any standard normally takes those far away from it.


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[PfcAJ]

The rb80 is nearly identical in configuration to a normal set of doubles. It's highly standardized.

you our just can't do those dives efficiently unless everyone is on the same page.

 

[SillyQuestions]

The rb80 is nearly identical in configuration to a normal set of doubles. It's highly standardized.

you our just can't do those dives efficiently unless everyone is on the same page.

If I dived my doubles rig with an RB80 diver, am I expected to be fully conversant in how to help them with any problem? Fully familiar with their gear?

I'm not. It's not a standard.

You have normal GUE hog rig which is standard.
SCR GUE rig which is standard.

Then there's GUE divers diving in small teams all over the world with their own standards applicable to their own diving environment.

These are all standard configurations, procedures, gases etc etc etc but they all differ.

This topic is about THE standard, doubles, team diving, GUE as sold on the tin and its limitations. Just because I showed that it does, people have got arsey about it.


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[TSandM]

Wonderful post, Koos! Panos Alexakos had an article in the third quarter Quest last year, talking about the GUE change to using CCRs. His point, made very vehemently, was that this is an organization founded with a serious eye to exploration diving. Twenty years ago, there was a lot of exploration diving available to do in backmounted doubles in caves, and for the very deep and long, an RB80 sufficed. Things have changed. Helium has become far more expensive; wrecks like the Mars disintegrate when exposed to exhaled oxygen from open circuit divers. Areas where there was once a lot of big tunnel cave to explore have been mapped, and what remains is smaller, siltier, and more difficult. An organization touting exploration as a core value, which did not adapt to the needs of exploration diving, would be remiss.

GUE has long been viewed as monolithic and inflexible BECAUSE of its core principle of standardization. But you CAN have a standard open circuit setup, a standard sidemount setup, a standard CCR setup. What's key is that everyone on the team understands the system, whether that's equipment, gases, deco, procedures, signals, whatever. And even that fails if you are talking about diving where it's simply impossible even to know what is happening to another diver, let alone reach them to assist.

UTD took another path to this. They have attempted to create configurations that allow mixed-team diving. GUE has chosen to say that the basic setup shouldn't change until it has to, and if it has to, the optimal setup for that dive or set of dives is the right one, and should be standardized. Still "plug and play", but you have to be at the level of that dive to be playing with that arrangement. Makes sense to me.

 

[kdupreez]

My point wasn't just about gear.

In no mount, zero-vis caves, all team diving protocols go to hell.

This is my point about the philosophy, keep it simple, redundant and safe.

Entering a no mount, zero-vis cave with another diver, no matter what the gear, and trying to dive with them in any capacity for a simple tourist dive, is over complication and unsafe.

Rigid adherence to any standard normally takes those far away from it.

All good points.. But I think until a person has done a GUE Cave1 and Cave2 class and experienced standardized single-file, no-viz, touch-contact procedures within team diving principles, it would be hard in my opinion to judge team-diving principles in such situations without the training and some experience to back that up.. And I dont have all the answers to everything either.

I agree, some environments make things tricky and you should not try hammer a square peg into that round hole. If exploration is the ultimate goal, that environment aint gonna adapt to your procedures & equipment.. you will have to adapt your procedures & equipment to it.. At best, we should be prudent and strive to make modifications carefully and ensure the entire team is onboard and safe with a modification to the "team standard"..

 

[PfcAJ]

If I dived my doubles rig with an RB80 diver, am I expected to be fully conversant in how to help them with any problem? Fully familiar with their gear?

I'm not. It's not a standard.

You have normal GUE hog rig which is standard.
SCR GUE rig which is standard.

Then there's GUE divers diving in small teams all over the world with their own standards applicable to their own diving environment.

These are all standard configurations, procedures, gases etc etc etc but they all differ.

This topic is about THE standard, doubles, team diving, GUE as sold on the tin and its limitations. Just because I showed that it does, people have got arsey about it.


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Ok. If you say so.