Scubaroo
Contributor
Hi,
I've only ever seen this once but it seems to make sense to me, and seeing as I'm about to assemble a new reg set I thought it would be a good topic to raise.
My PADI training taught me to hold onto your buddy's BC and keep them facing you in an out-of-air situation where they are using your octopus. However, both my (and most other peoples') 2nd stage and octopus have the air hose mounted on their right hand side. Both regs are also normally mounted on the right side of the 1st stage (when looking at the diver from behind). This is pretty standard. However, this means that the octopus is in the ideal usage position for me, not my buddy. My buddy facing me would have an s-bend or kink in the hose in order to use the octopus the correct way up while still facing me.
An article in an Australian diving magazine last year suggested mounting the octopus on the left side of your first stage, and moving your console onto the right side (just for symmetry, they are on different HP/LP ports), in order to put the octopus in a more ergonomic position for your buddy in an air-share situation, ie without any hose kinks. Try it - lay your reg set out on a table, with the 1st and 2nd stage in the position they would be in if they were on a tank and in your mouth, then try and put the octopus in your imaginary buddy's mouth facing your 2nd stage. You have to twist the octopus around to face them - putting the hose on your left, when it is coming from your right shoulder.
Naturally a longer hose, or a DIR configuration, would alleviate or eliminate this problem, but not everyone dives like this.
Any thoughts? Is this "standard" configuration a left-over of days when the octopus was designed to be a backup for the wearer, rather than their buddy? Guessing this might have been the case in the early days of regulator technology. Does anyone see any problems with using this suggested configuration? I'm planning to give it a go. It seems logical to be able to hand your buddy the octopus the right way around ready to slip in their mouth, rather than back-to-front and having to deal with getting it the right way around, when they are presumably gasping for air in a life-threatening situation. The only downside I see to this configuration is that your octopus is then your left side, not your right, where your buddy might be expecting to find it, but that's why they make them yellow, hey?
Ben
I've only ever seen this once but it seems to make sense to me, and seeing as I'm about to assemble a new reg set I thought it would be a good topic to raise.
My PADI training taught me to hold onto your buddy's BC and keep them facing you in an out-of-air situation where they are using your octopus. However, both my (and most other peoples') 2nd stage and octopus have the air hose mounted on their right hand side. Both regs are also normally mounted on the right side of the 1st stage (when looking at the diver from behind). This is pretty standard. However, this means that the octopus is in the ideal usage position for me, not my buddy. My buddy facing me would have an s-bend or kink in the hose in order to use the octopus the correct way up while still facing me.
An article in an Australian diving magazine last year suggested mounting the octopus on the left side of your first stage, and moving your console onto the right side (just for symmetry, they are on different HP/LP ports), in order to put the octopus in a more ergonomic position for your buddy in an air-share situation, ie without any hose kinks. Try it - lay your reg set out on a table, with the 1st and 2nd stage in the position they would be in if they were on a tank and in your mouth, then try and put the octopus in your imaginary buddy's mouth facing your 2nd stage. You have to twist the octopus around to face them - putting the hose on your left, when it is coming from your right shoulder.
Naturally a longer hose, or a DIR configuration, would alleviate or eliminate this problem, but not everyone dives like this.
Any thoughts? Is this "standard" configuration a left-over of days when the octopus was designed to be a backup for the wearer, rather than their buddy? Guessing this might have been the case in the early days of regulator technology. Does anyone see any problems with using this suggested configuration? I'm planning to give it a go. It seems logical to be able to hand your buddy the octopus the right way around ready to slip in their mouth, rather than back-to-front and having to deal with getting it the right way around, when they are presumably gasping for air in a life-threatening situation. The only downside I see to this configuration is that your octopus is then your left side, not your right, where your buddy might be expecting to find it, but that's why they make them yellow, hey?
Ben