Longhose as octi ?

[Frosty]

Hey folks I've taken advice from other more experienced divers and have a nice new bright yellow 2.0m (7 foot) hose with octo second stage on the end. I was going to do the whole swap my primary second stage onto the long hose then octo onto the short hose etc and then stopped.
The hose is yellow the octo is yellow. Why on earth don't I make the most of BOTH ways of thinking.
Have the 2.0m hose neatly folded up and held onto the side of my BC with light bungees (tucked into loops of bungy so it pulls out easilly) -easy to get to for me. Neat and tidy
In a cave or wreck my buddy can grab it easilly.
Am I missing something?

 

[NJDiverMark]

From my experience and the way my setup is, the 7ft hose is supposed to be attached to your primary reg. It wraps behing the head once and the excess gets tucked in your waist strap. The backup is supposed to be on the short hose and be on a necklace. If you ever have to share air you give your buddy your primary and you simply use the backup around your neck.

 

[DevonDiver]

Am I missing something?

Training and practice!

...but I am sure you'll deal with that in due course.

Bear in mind that new & unfamiliar diving equipment, if not properly trained for, will never make you 'safer'.

Hey folks I've taken advice from other more experienced divers and have a nice new bright yellow 2.0m (7 foot) hose with octo second stage on the end. I was going to do the whole swap my primary second stage onto the long hose then octo onto the short hose etc and then stopped. The hose is yellow the octo is yellow

What regs are we talking about?

I'd put performance over 'style' ever time. Who cares if your yellow reg isn't on your yellow hose? Keep the best performing regulator as your primary. If they are both identical regs, and both tuned, then it doesn't make a difference.

Have the 2.0m hose neatly folded up and held onto the side of my BC with light bungees (tucked into loops of bungy so it pulls out easilly) -easy to get to for me. Neat and tidy

That is one option. Not a popular one though....

Drawbacks are that you cannot re-stow the hose once it is deployed. This discourages doing S-Drills. It can also entangle in confined spaces. It can also snag on deployment, which you cannot easily rectify as it is behind you.

Most (all) long-hose divers I know, 'loop' the long hose around their neck for air-sharing.

See below:

In a cave or wreck my buddy can grab it easilly.

Please don't take offence - but I see no indications in your post that illustrate you are trained for cave or wreck diving.

Don't fool yourself that having a long hose is all you need to operate in an overhead environment. Equipment doesn't mean anything without the training and knowledge to utilise it properly.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Folks have been diving a "stuffed" long hose for a long time. It has some drawbacks ... like not being able to restow it without assistance ... and I wouldn't use it in a cave or wreck like that ... but for OW, I know several folks who dive it. My initial OW instructor was one. He had his neatly folded inside a neoprene sleeve and bungeed to the side of his tank.

If it works for you ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Frosty]

Please don't take offence - but I see no indications in your post that illustrate you are trained for cave or wreck diving.

Don't fool yourself that having a long hose is all you need to operate in an overhead environment. Equipment doesn't mean anything without the training and knowledge to utilise it properly.

Gosh mon you are being awfull polite.-feel free to offend if you think its needed to get the message across -I would
Hehehe--but I read the padi instruction on e learning--doesn't that mean I'm good to go?

No seriously. If indeed I'm looking to go in a "direction" with my diving its cave/wreck exploration.
So no I have no intention right now of exploring overhead enviroments. But heck if im comfortable using longhose then its one less thing to learn.

The bit with the normal long hose setup I don't understand is WHY would you are the rescuing diver want to take your reg out of your mouth and donate it.
Isn't it better to donate the one you aren't using. It just seems to add unneeded complication.
-This is a genuine desire to learn by the way not a smartass crack

 

[DevonDiver]

The bit with the normal long hose setup I don't understand is WHY would you are the rescuing diver want to take your reg out of your mouth and donate it.
Isn't it better to donate the one you aren't using. It just seems to add unneeded complication.

The main reason is: you know that regulator works.

The OOA diver has an immediate need for quick, reliable air. What is better than the one in your mouth, that you have been breathing from until that point?

With technical divers, that principle is more important; because they will be carrying multiple stages of different gasses (some of which may be fatally toxic if breathed at the wrong depth). You know that whatever the regulator in your buddies mouth is a safe gas to breathe at any given depth.

The principle of primary donation is pretty common. However, it relies upon the donor being able to access their own AAS immediately. Thus, long hoses are normally (and logically) paired with short-hose, bungee-necklace stowed, secondary regulators.

Donate your primary... and your secondary regulator is right there in front of your chin. With practice, some divers can even access this regulator with no-hands - just tucking their heads/chins and getting it directly with their mouth.

 

[Sat Diver]

As Devon Diver says, this has great significance when your body is adorned with four or more second stages. Some of the mixes maybe hypoxic for the depth you are at, or more likely toxic. So a panicked diver who is out of gas, may not take the time to go through all your various regulators and their hose routings to check. So when you are out of gas, YOU offer up your primary, because both you and he know that it is safe at the depth you are at, and YOU get your secondary which is bungeed around your neck, so YOU know that it's available and is the regulator that's carrying the appropriate mix. It's something you do not have to think about.

 

[Sat Diver]

BTW this is a system I have never used myself. I only just read about it after becoming a member of this forum earlier this year. It just makes such immense sense to me, that I cannot believe I never came across it before in a diving career spanning 20 plus years and who knows how many dives.
In standard open water non decompression dives it's value may not be seen so easily.

 

[DevonDiver]

In standard open water non decompression dives it's value may not be seen so easily.

Yeah, the primary benefit of a long hose is the ability to donate air when travelling single-file in a restricted environment. In recent years, it became more of a 'trend' for cave/wreck/tech trained divers to use the same configuration regardless of their diving environment. This aids familiarity and ensures that equipment specific skills and drills are constant and ingrained. From there, the appeal of diving in this configuration began to percolate through the wider recreational diving community.

Put simply, you don't need a long hose for open water diving. However, if you already do, or intend to do, overhead environment diving, then it makes a lot of sense to adopt the configuration for all your dives.

From personal experience, I do find that air-sharing with a long hose is a much more flexible, less stressful, method. It requires some training.. and lots of practice (but what emergency drills don't...if you want to rely on them?). It also requires proper buddy checks and good communication (if diving with new buddies who are unfamiliar with the configuration and procedures). But once you are slick with it, you'll wonder why you ever bothered with a 'standard' AAS configuration before.

 

[SDAnderson]

Put simply, you don't need a long hose for open water diving. However, if you already do, or intend to do, overhead environment diving, then it makes a lot of sense to adopt the configuration for all your dives.

For OW divers, I think the 7' hose is too long. Better a 5' hose that will provide your buddy immediate access to a functional regulator, allow a little distance between you and a distressed buddy (including a comfortable side-by-side swim to the exit) and avoid the entanglement hazards of the 7' hose.

kazbanz: I have lots of quibbles with the DIR crowd but a valuable resource that it sounds like you are ready for is Doing it Right: The Fundamentals of Better Diving by Jarrod Jablonski. It will answer your questions and many that you haven't even thought of and will be valuable even if you never pursue serious technical diving. After you wade through that, I'd recommend The Six Skills and Other Discussions by Steve Lewis. More philosophical with more appropriate learning sequencing, this book is short on rote answers and long on stimulating the thought process that every (budding) technical diver should be pursuing. Good questions and good luck!