De-watering, the ability to remove water from the rebreather so as to establish a viable loop. If your unit can’t tolerate a flood, in my mind it’s unsafe to use. It removes a significant benefit to diving a rebreather, the ability to take the time required to sort out your situation. Immediate and permanent bailout has some limitations, and removing tools (the unit itself) from the emergency toolbox for something so easily correctable is just silly in my mind.
Yes, there are absolutely failures where the unit is irrevocably non-functional. But by minimizing those you give the diver options that could save their life. And ultimately that’s always the goal, to get back dry in one piece.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion. That people still buy rEvo’s, despite the fact that you can end up carrying a unit full of water back on deck with no way of rectifying that, proves that most people don’t really care or understand the consequences of certain design choices. Rebreather diving is a risky endeavor. We all have our own ideas about acceptable risk levels. To me, piss poor flood tolerance is a hard stop. Clearly others feel differently. As long as one can justify it to themselves, or really their loved ones, ultimately that’s the driver.....
