Pony Bottle / Spare Air

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.....I have seen both, I hope I am in the last group.

A fool uses a pony in place of training, gas planning and experience without regard to the dive characteristics to delude himself into thinking that he is safe.

A wise diver uses a pone in addition to training, gas planning and experience in certain situations to enhance his safety.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

I see it like this, most car wrecks are because of driver error. 99% of the adult population drives a motor vehicle. You could say the best way to avoid a wreck is to pay attention and drive safely, so why should we wear seatbelts? Because of the 1% of the time when your axle breaks, a tire falls off your car at 65mph, and you bury your car in the guard rail, you will wish you had been wearing one.

I'll keep diving my pony beyond 60ft. Just in case..........

I'm honestly not trying to increase the consumption of popcorn, however... A seatbelt is a passive safety device. It does not increase task loading. There is no decision to be made as you slide towards another car in an intersection: "Should I activate the seatbelt and brace for impact or try to drive around the other car?" A seatbelt even protects you should you faint or freeze in terror.

While you have the popcorn out and are enjoying the nth iteration of pony debates, you can read this discussion of seat belts and safety.

 

[Atomic_Diver]

Spare Air is just no good for a bailout below 70' as far as i am comfortable with, Pony Tanks can be really helpful, yet if your going to just go ahead and carry 2 tanks have you gave any thought to diving doubles? diving doubles gives you more air, a way of isolating 2 seperate tanks (that otherwise are connected) if a problem should arise with the regulators, o-rings in 1 of the tanks etc..., among other things, but in reality (unless your a hoover) at the depths you would be using the pony bottles/spare air if an emergency arised you would be very close to if not past your no deco limits, so basically simply put you would (most likely) be watching your no deco time as well, because another thing to consider is if you are at deep depths you may have enough air to get you to the surface with the Pony bottle, but now your main tanks empty at 110' and you have a 19 cu ft pony, your past no deco and need to compleate some deco stops, and a pony tank may not be enough for the total time of stops needed, a surface support station could fix some problems, but I just reccomend diving doubles......

 

[tomfcrist]

A seatbelt is a passive safety device. It does not increase task loading.

A Pony bottle doesnt increase task loading any more or less than having ditchable weights. If you are comfortable using it and Practice using it, you will not fumble around with it if you need it. Do you fumble around with your octo reg or with your computer when you try to access it? If so, get more familiar with your gear. Im just saying that it is a nice comfort to know that there is air available if my Primary reg starts freeflowing when I have just started an ascent from 120 ft with only 1200psi in my tank(thats a third). At the rate i would lose air from a freeflowing reg, I would not be able to make a safe ascent without running out of air.....Thus the Pony.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

A Pony bottle doesnt increase task loading any more or less than having ditchable weights.

First off, I am not arguing against a pony, just chattering away on SB. But in response to the quoted line, it does increase task loading slightly more than ditchable weights: You have to check its pressure before dives or you have a failure mode that is not possible with weights. Also, we are not talking about carrying a pony instead of weights, we are talking about carrying a pony in addition to ditchable weights so even if the task loading is less in your mind it is additional task loading.

The worst of all possible worlds would be for a diver to have an inoperative pony and be a riskier diver due to misplaced confidence in the pony that doesn't work. This is simply not possible with ditchable weights.

That being said, I don't doubt that you can manage a pony easily, so dive safe and enjoy!

 

[tomfcrist]

While you have the popcorn out and are enjoying the nth iteration of pony debates, you can read this discussion of seat belts and safety.

Im really not interested in a study done in London in 1981 about the effects seatbelts have on a drivers habits. I would be more interested in personal experiances of State troopers, and other law enforcement officials(because they have to clean up the carnage) about how seatbelts DONT save lives. Good luck finding one, its a cold hard truth.

 

[tomfcrist]

First off, I am not arguing against a pony, just chattering away on SB. But in response to the quoted line, it does increase task loading slightly more than ditchable weights: You have to check its pressure before dives or you have a failure mode that is not possible with weights. Also, we are not talking about carrying a pony instead of weights, we are talking about carrying a pony in addition to ditchable weights so even if the task loading is less in your mind it is additional task loading.

The worst of all possible worlds would be for a diver to have an inoperative pony and be a riskier diver due to misplaced confidence in the pony that doesn't work. This is simply not possible with ditchable weights.

!

I also am just chatting, and the probability of having two regulator systems fail on any given dive is just astronomical. Same as any other specialized equipment, if you learn how to use it, train with it, and maintain it you should never have a problem. But yes, if a diver has a bottle that they havent touched since last year and just throw it on without checking it out first they are falsely assuming that they have a reliable redundant source....It really comes down to the maturity level, and wisdom of the diver in question.

 

[GeorgeC]

I'm getting out the popcorn for this one:

The very premise of your statement begs your conclusion. When you talk about something happening due to the lack of a pony, you are implying that the lack of a pony was the cause of their misfortune.

If you point to someone doing a CESA without a pony, I would like to understand where their buddy was, what training they had in gas management, when their equipment was last serviced and so forth. I would like to know why they chose to do such-and-such a dive and why they didn't thumb it at some point.

Here is the deal. You are given the insta-buddy on a boat. You go to the Caribbean (You tell me when the o-ring was replaced on their tank) You are down doing a drift dive. Your buddy goes off snapping photos of something, you blow an o-ring and because the vis is good he is 15 - 20 feet away from you. Your choice, swim over to him and grab his octo or go for the pony. I rather go for the pony.
I am not saying gas management was an issue as the spg’s were checked regularly.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

Here is the deal. You are given the insta-buddy on a boat. You go to the Caribbean (You tell me when the o-ring was replaced on their tank) You are down doing a drift dive. Your buddy goes off snapping photos of something, you blow an o-ring and because the vis is good he is 15 - 20 feet away from you. Your choice, swim over to him and grab his octo or go for the pony. I rather go for the pony.

Since you are asking about me and I just returned from Cozumel, I can tell you what I actually did under those exact circumstances. First, I never strayed further from an assigned or agreed buddy than I was comfortable swimming to obtain air or assist the buddy if they were in trouble regardless of visibility.

15' is about the limit of how far I would care to swim to a buddy that is not regularly checking my welfare or who is not familiar with standard light signals, even though for my most recent certification I was required to perform a 40' out of air swim. What would I do if they start swimming away from me? As a result, I stay close enough even if that means following their whims. I think of them as carrying my independant double on their back for me, even if they don't know it.

I did both Columbia Deep and Barracuda without a buddy at all, and in both cases I was stuck on the DM's elbow like an Alabama tick. That's just me. Others like yourself may prefer to carry a pony. I have no argument with you making that choice. I also chose not to dive Punta Sur or Maracaibo on an AL80 with an instabuddy or no buddy at all.

In another thread elsewhere on SB I'm exploring other options for having my own redundant air supply for certain types of dives under 100'. So I am not against redundant air at all. If a pony makes you a safer diver, carry it.

 

[ScubaInChicago]

+1 for a set of doubles.....