Limits of standardization.

[SillyQuestions]

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"..

I must admit, I don't have experience of single file, no-vis, touch contact procedures. I'm not GUE cave trained. I'd like to be, but round me all the caves aren't conversant with GUEs standards.

They are conversant with sidemount, zero-vis, solo diving techniques.

Top guys within GUE, including JJ, agree. In fact, one of the top technical trainers for GUE gave a talk this year (and most years I believe) at the annual GUE conference on the differences between British cave diving and why we do things the way we do, the best endorsement of the limitations of standardisation I know.

But, as someone said above, 99.99% of all dives (and probably more) undertaken around the world would be much better served by the standard, GUE system.

 

[TSandM]

Yeah, there's a difference between zero-viz, touch contact exits done to cope with an emergency, and a dive that is PLANNED to involve a great deal of no-mount, zero viz restricted passage. Realistically, there is little two people can do to help one another in that circumstance (although on the other side, maybe, or if someone has to turn around; I don't know, because I have never and will never be in that situation.). And I think you hit on something important -- GUE had someone come and speak about the differences between the sump diving you are doing, and what we mostly do. GUE has also had Steve Bogaerts speak on sidemount diving. The organization is not wearing blinders.

But where diving can be done as a team, GUE does it as a team, which means standardization. Yes, there are GUE-trained teams around the world doing their own dives with their own equipment and other protocols -- Nadwidny here on SB is an example. But that isn't GUE diving, in the sense that it would not work to take the average GUE T2 diver who flies into Edmonton and try to slot him instantly into one of Brian's teams. It wouldn't even work to take a GUE T2 JJ trained diver and do that. The strength of the GUE approach is that the JJ-trained GUE diver can go anywhere and slot instantly into a GUE JJ team, worldwide.

 

[SillyQuestions]

My point precisely.

It's a very good, amazing system Id love to do.

But someone asked the limitations, I just showed them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DaleC]

My take was that standardization deals with what is important to the dive. This changes as the complexity of the dive changes. So to answer the OP; what is important for your level of diving.

One of my objections to GUE in the past was standardization (because so much of what I do is individualized) but another objection I have, with mainstream diving, is the complete abandonment of the team concept, touted as such a pillar of safety. Not just in equipment, which is perhaps the least of worries, but in behavior as well. Lip service is paid, some are good, but there is no way of knowing really until you are into the dive.

How do you change that? How do you create a system wherin you know that, if you buddy with diver a or b you can expect certain conditions to exist. That they will not blow off a buddy check, that they will know how to donate a reg, that they could shoot a bag or do your deco if you had a problem, that they will have the equipment you may need in a pinch. It's not a problem if you dive by yourself, or with the same few buddies with which you have developed your own system, but as a population it is a difficult proposition. GUE attempts to address this by partly via standardized equipment and practices (and partly through practice). If you dive in that subset you reasonably know they will have this/do that. If you know they will have this/do that you can begin to trust them as a buddy.

Same gas/deco model so we are on the same schedule and can stay together, same stuff in the same place so we can find it without pulling everything out of both pockets, same way of donating so we know what to expect when stressed. Same way of checking things so we don't miss things.

I like three points that were put to me:

1. GUE doesn't try to be all things to all people. It's not the over-arching right system for all applications. It just tries to create one well thought out safe system of diving that extends from rec to tech and is global in nature. That's it.

2. Every piece of equipment, besides the bungeed B/U and Pee valve, is for your team mate to use as well as yourself. GUE gives them a say in the important stuff you choose.

3. Standardization provides a system of conformation/correction because your buddy also knows what things should look/act like.

 

[alewar]

... yet GUE refuses to standardize the basic units. Messing up meters and feet crashed an spacecraft once. And those were rocket scientists doing the conversions...

 

[kr2y5]

HAHAHA, Krzys, you know you should mix the koolaid responsibly with water... Not snort it directly from the packet, right? Im very much looking forward to your fundies class in May! You'll love it!

Well, when in Rome, I shall out-Pope the Pope... as God said, "if you are neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth" . Looking forward to it, too!!!!!

 

[tbone1004]

... yet GUE refuses to standardize the basic units. Messing up meters and feet crashed an spacecraft once. And those were rocket scientists doing the conversions...

that is something that I do wish GUE would start pushing is at least the use of bar pressure gauges and liters for tank volume, would make gas planning and dive execution so much simpler. Meters being an inherently less accurate depth provider makes sense as well since getting anal to the point of feet is a little excessive in decompression planning in my opinion. Unfortunately that would require a massive undertaking to convert just their organization, but I hope it happens soon, and as most technical divers hit at least 2 of the following, lean to the right, shoot guns, fly planes, are an engineer or some variant thereof, it would be nice if the country as a whole made the transition to metric, our minds would be put at ease using an infinitely superior and standardized system with the rest of the world... The damn brits went away from their own unit system for all of the important things, time for us to follow suit.

 

[Ben_ca]

... yet GUE refuses to standardize the basic units. Messing up meters and feet crashed an spacecraft once. And those were rocket scientists doing the conversions...

In your experience, has this caused any problems? I have dove with people that used bar/psi/metric/english units and it was not a problem. Have you had any issues?

 

[kdupreez]

I've never had any issues either.. It's also hard to know exactly how many liters and bars your tanks are when they are not marked like that from manufacturer.. Also when you mix gas at the shop, guaranteed they wil be psi..

When leaving your tanks at the shop for a fill and you ask for 50% and the tank monkey reads 21 and figures that's MOD in feet and gives you pure oxygen.. Stranger things have happened..

Then when it comes to dive planning you have to convert al dive maps to meters.. Inform the boat captain of you metric dive plan, which he won't understand..

Heaven forbid you get into an accident and you give your metric dive profile to an imperial chamber tec..

All in all, what you gain from standardizing on metric in aan imperial world all of a sudden becomes less useful.

 

[alewar]

In your experience, has this caused any problems? I have dove with people that used bar/psi/metric/english units and it was not a problem. Have you had any issues?

I haver never dove with imperial buddys so no problems so far. However, if you put me with an American GUE team without any preparation on my side, I would either massively delay the planning or do a trust-me dive since every unit other than time is different. So that whole thing about "you pair up two GUE divers and they'll understand each other" is not always that seamless. Moreover, if I were to be stressed during a dive and had to do some mental calculations on the fly, I would be much more prone to error using units I normally don't.