No such thing as a Pony Bottle

[Kharon]

... I have been 20+ times on diving vacations all over the world and I have never seen a diver with a pony bottle. ...

I always travel with my pony and never dive without it. Personally I could give a crap what others do. My first and absolute dive rule is that "You are diving solo on every dive. It doesn't matter how many divers are in the water, it doesn't matter how many "buddies" you have, it doesn't matter how experienced they are. It's all on you." In fact, in an emergency, I don't want any help unless I specifically ask for it. I don't want you doing something stupid to help and end up drowning me. I didn't get the solo card to add to a collection.

 

[Wookie]

This discussion surprises me. I have been 20+ times on diving vacations all over the world and I have never seen a diver with a pony bottle. While, I am not saying that a pony bottle is useless I am flabergasted :shocked2:.

I rent pony bottles at my dive charter. By far, the folks who most often rent them are traveling divers from the UK. Of course, they were purchased for those who solo dive or want a solo class. I have mounting systems for back-mounting a 13 or 19 to your main tank, or for slinging a 30 or 40.

 

[mick allein III]

Im not intending to set up the solo debate, but Im with Kharon. IMO every diver entering the water should be prepared to take care of themselves as well as lend support to another diver as necessary. I see way too many divers entering the water trusting that another diver will take care of them. I think the use of a pony bottle beyond the depth of where one could perform a reasonable safe CESA is good practice. The OP stated that the instructor said pony bottles were tec. They are not. I do think for new divers training and practice in the use of a pony is a good idea.

 

[Searcaigh]

This discussion surprises me. I have been 20+ times on diving vacations all over the world and I have never seen a diver with a pony bottle. While, I am not saying that a pony bottle is useless I am flabergasted :shocked2:.

I have been diving a lot too all around the world and yet to see a whale shark!

Plenty of people outside of USA use ponies, in fact there are several of us use them all the time here in UAE. I have also used one when diving outside of UAE on dive trips when they are available

 

[MMM]

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[TSandM]

The concept behind carrying a pony bottle is a redundant gas supply. The limitation of a normal single tank setup is that a single malfunction can deprive you of breathing gas. The reason technical and cave divers use double tanks is not only to increase the available gas, but to avoid that dependence on a single system.

Open water divers are taught to look to their dive buddy for gas in an emergency, and that is a perfectly valid strategy, but it has some underlying assumptions. It assumes that you will stay in proximity to your buddy, that your buddy will maintain adequate gas reserves for both of you, and that the two of you can initiate and execute a safe air-sharing end to the dive. All of these things are perfectly achievable, given some education and some practice, but unfortunately neither the information nor the skill is ubiquitous in the diving world. It is not uncommon for us to teach a Rescue class to divers who have not practiced an air-sharing ascent since their open water class -- and they are almost always appalled at how poorly they perform when asked to do it. People who travel and dive with unfamiliar buddies all the time seem to have a lot of problems with erratic buddy behavior, which leads to a decision to use a system that permits self-rescue.

So, you have a potential problem which is dangerous but rare. You can solve it with equipment, or you can solve it with technique and a better choice of dive buddies.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Can you site a case?

When the student jumps from the boat to the ocean for the first time isn't he/she doing exactly what the instructor tells to do? What responsibility and what choice the student can have? He is just doing what he is been told to do. How do you image "teaching/learning" thing works? You chose the instructor, you learn from the instructor. You don't like the instructor - change the instructor. But when you are hiring an instructor to teach him.. well... you are annoying the instructor and you are not learning yourself. You can do it, of course, it's your life and your money. But wouldn't it be better to get the most out of instructor, get the training and then dive any way you want?

How many do you want? I personally know of two recent deaths (the last two years or so) where the divers were supposed to be under direct supervision of an instructor. I was consulted by an attorney involved in those.
I know of a near death because of instructor negligence and taking a student into conditions they were not ready for and refusing to end the dive when the student gave the thumbs up. Again an attorney contacted me for an opinion and advice.
I can cite a computer profile and Medical Examiners report on a death where a new diver trusted an instructor and did a "trust me dive" that killed him.

Even in the OW class, IF you take the time to look up and read the RSTC standards as well as any agency standards, checkout dives are just that. Checkout dives. Not teaching dives. The teaching is supposed to have taken place in confined water. Taking a student to open water is saying that the instructor feels confident that this student has learned and demonstrated the necessary skills to plan, execute, and safely return from a dive with a buddy of equal skill and training. Those OW dives are to verify that. If I take an OW student to a lake, quarry, ocean and dive from shore or a boat I am saying that they know what they are doing. Or they should not be there.

This - "When the student jumps from the boat to the ocean for the first time isn't he/she doing exactly what the instructor tells to do? What responsibility and what choice the student can have? He is just doing what he is been told to do."

If this is the case that person has no business on those dives. Either the student has not learned or the instructor has not taught what should be the case.

They are not doing what the instructor tells them to do. Supposedly they are doing what they have been trained to do. They are responsible for electing to take that step off the boat based on the knowledge and skills they were given. It is their choice, and theirs alone, to do it. If they are just doing what they were told then they are a dangerous individual. To themselves and other divers.

 

[Nemrod]

This discussion surprises me. I have been 20+ times on diving vacations all over the world and I have never seen a diver with a pony bottle. While, I am not saying that a pony bottle is useless I am flabergasted :shocked2:.

It is fairly rare in the resort scuba world but not unheard of. I see a pony rig about as often as I see a BP/wing though in the last few years I have begun to see at least a few more BP/wings. I also see a lot of Spare Air, more than either a pony or a BP/wing or doubles.

A pony is a bridge tool, it fills the gap between single rigs and double rigs for divers who feel the need for redundancy but do not need the increased capacity and (carry) weight of an isolated doubles set. Side mount rigging, slinging a bottle or back mounting on a tank is a completely normal and acceptable rig and the OPs instructor needs to get with the program.

For a diver who is dedicated to always using a pony, I would further state that it would be acceptable to remove the "octopus" second, the donor second stage, from the primary regulator as it is now obsoleted by the fully redundant pony rig. There is no reason to have three second stages.

N

 

[The Chairman]

While I don't like throwing equipment at a training issue, I understand why some do. I also understand why some instructors won't allow it. I was talked into buying Twin Jets when I started diving again. My old Jets were way too small and they seemed to be a good alternative. I even developed adequate anti-silt techniques with them. However, when I took my cavern class I was told point blank that splits were simply not allowed. No, he was not interested in seeing my technique. No was the final answer and so I bought a set of Jets that would fit me. I don't think I've used the splits since.

Asking an instructor to change their standards for a class is problematic on many levels. If I am teaching buddy skills, the last thing I want on any OW diver is redundant air. This is especially true if I am presenting a series of task loading exercises and I think the pony adds more than they can handle. Maybe standards was a poor excuse, but I can see a number of problems arising from it's use in class.

 

[boulderjohn]

Not necessary, we are talking about deep dive "specialty". The person could have just finished 4 OW checkout dives and the next dive could be "AOW" "deep" dive. So the person may have never been on the "dives" besides the OW class. We don't know the OPs experience, but this is a possible scenario.

This was a deep dive specialty, not the AOW deep dive. The language may be confusing to people who are not instructors, so I will try to explain.

When you take the AOW course, you have to do five dives that are technically called "adventure dives." The purpose of these dives is both to teach new skills and to introduce the diver to different kinds of dive experiences that the diver may choose to investigate further later on.

A specialty course is one way to investigate things further later on. It leads to a specialty certification that is different from and more detailed than what the diver learned in the AOW adventure dive. If the specialty is in a subject area for which the student did an AOW adventure dive, then the AOW adventure dive can be counted as the first part of the specialty requirements.

The deep dive specialty requires 4 dives. The AOW deep dive can be counted as the first of those 4 dives. The remaining 3 dives include requirements not found in the AOW adventure dive, and the academic content includes material not found in the AOW adventure dive. One difference is that in the deep dive specialty, the student can go to 130 feet, while the AOW limit is 100 feet. Another difference is the requirement in the deep dive specialty for the student to breathe from an alternate air source while doing an extended safety stop as part of an emergency decompression scenario. A pony bottle is identified in the standards as an option for that alternative air source.

I do not know the history of the individual in this case. Because we don't have deep water in Colorado, I do not get to do this specialty all that often, but in every case in which I have taught it, the student has had extensive experience before selecting the class.