Pony, Octo, or both?

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1. Valve on or off? I decided to leave it on because if I am faced with a situation where I NEED to use my bail out (aka Pony) bottle, it will be because the crap hit the fan and I will be under a lot of stress already and don’t need to add one more task to perform, possibly while getting ready to breath water. If the pony reg starts to leak or free flow during the dive I will see it because it is slung right under my chest. I would rather deal with a leak when I am not stressed than trying to turn on a valve when I am stressed. (Decos are different, esp if you are leaving them on a line while you go off yonder)

2. It is a fact that a pony can give one an unearned feeling of confidence that might lead them to get into trouble. The solution is to plan your dive, and dive your plan as if you did not have the pony. When deciding what to do during my dives I pretend I don’t have the pony at all, and if it not safe to do without the pony, it’s not safe to do WITH the pony. On the other hand, having a redundant air source can help to keep one composed so that he can work out the problem at hand better, even if he never touches the back-up air supply. Confidence is more valuable than gold at 100 feet!

3. All this discussion would be moot if the buddy system was foolproof, and hats off to the DIR folks (and others) who make it almost that way, but in the real world it is not that reliable. I think DumpsterDiver said it quite well; "… the recreation diving buddy system, which is demonstrated to NOT work each and every day. Anyone who has any diving experience at all has seen the breakdown of the buddy system, when watching recreational divers. It constantly fails and if scuba diving was not relatively safe, this failure would result in many dive accidents.”
 
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I have tried the same logic before only to be told by people with less than 50 dives I was wrong on every point.

Good luck.

I know what you mean, like they say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.........it does puzzle me when people ask a question when their mind is already set :confused:
 
I know what you mean, like they say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.........it does puzzle me when people ask a question when their mind is already set :confused:


I know what you both mean...and whats the point. There is a tool for every job. And a proper way of using said tool.
 
I know what you mean, like they say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.........it does puzzle me when people ask a question when their mind is already set :confused:

My mind is not set. I am evaluating all of the comments.
 
No true! When you add a pony bottle, it may involve only one hose not multiple hoses. Some people, will remove the octopus hose (or use an air 2 inflator) and if this is done, then the addition of the pony bottle, does NOT increase the number of regulator hoses at all.

The pony bottle can be rigged very cleanly and if back mounted, the hose can be run under the arm and then up to the neck where the 2nd stage is held by a necklace. A very clean configuration.

As to why a pony bottle would be minimal to your needs,,, that comment makes no sense to me, you carefully choose a pony bottle that IS sized to meet your needs. Why would a pony bottle be useless to a team member? It should work about as well for a team member as for the person carrying it?

As for the pony bottle throwing off your balance.. That can be compensated for by setting a piece of lead on the other side of the main tank, however the asymmetry of the configuartion is so minor that I have never bothered with it.

The danger of confusing the pony bottle and primary regulator IS a significant issue. But if the pony bottle second stage is mounted on a necklace, the opportunity for confusion is minimal and of course a buddy check would identify this issue on the boat.

As for trying to depend on a "proven system that does work"... I assume that is the recreation diving buddy system, which is demonstrated to NOT work each and every day. Anyone who has any diving expereince at all has seen the break down of the buddy system, when watching recreational divers. It constantly fails and if scuba diving was not relatively safe, this failure would result in many dive accidents.

A pony adds potential for entanglement, it has to be turned on before you enter the water and left on. If you only use a button gauge you have no idea how much gas you have available so you should add an SPG to accomplish that at least. Why would you remove your safe second? I am not talking about the recreational buddy system and never made any reference to it. I am talking about slinging a stage. If you route the hose from your pony bottle under your arm and to a necklace you are going to lose valuable time deploying the regulator for your OOA buddy, a stage bottle can be unclipped and handed off to a buddy. An Air2 is something that I would not consider as a usable regulator.

People with limited dive experience and the lack of foresight to evaluate and try different approaches tend to be the ones that continue to promote unsafe and questionable diving procedures. The OP is a new diver who does have an open mind, the idea here is to allow him the chance to choose his gear wisely and hopefully buy once.

If you have read his posts you will find that he has already tried a pony and did not like the unbalanced effect it gave him, of course you could make the rig more convoluted and slap another piece of lead on his cylinder to counterbalance.
 
My mind is not set. I am evaluating all of the comments.

Senseiern,

That wasn't aimed at you, I have noticed that you are evaluating your choices and as I have said before I am very interested in seeing what your final gear choices turn out to be.
 
Thanks, TSandM - here are my replies. Your feedback is welcomed.

How are you going to mount it? Sling it. Where will the pony regulator be? Hose held in place with bungees and reg near the valve, rigged like a DIR staging bottle. Will you have a secondary reg on your other first stage as well? Mais oui. Octo in a necklace. Where will IT be mounted? Necklace. Will you have any kind of pressure gauge on your pony bottle? Yes. Will you dive it with the valve on or off? On. What regulator do you hand off to someone else? The one in my mouth. Can you hand off the entire bottle if you want to? Yes. What size bottle are you going to use? 19 cu ft for no-deco diving down to 130 feet.

These are all questions to reflect upon and decisions to make if you decide to carry an auxiliary gas source, in addition, of course, to sitting down and doing the math on how much gas you need for an emergency supply, for the dives you are considering doing. I did the math.

The only part I disagree with is that your stage reg should be charged, ie turned on to pressurize and then turn off. Other than that it is good to see you are moving in the right direction, keep it up! I would consider upgrading the 19 to a 40 but you have time for that :wink:
 
just skip the pony, if you are going to be doing the diving requiring redundant source double tanks will be a better option. For the start learn how to be a good buddy. If you want to spend your money well, invest them into the system that will grow with you. Get BP/W for a single rig and buy 2 tanks that you can eventually double up. Eventually you will just add the double wing and double up your tanks. Learn how to reach your valve on the back of your single tank. If the reg starts flowing you can always modulate the valve until you reach your buddy or the surface. Pony should not be planned to be used for OOA situations unless it's an unexpected failure, you need to learn proper gas planning not to get to that point.
 
1. Valve on or off? I decided to leave it on because if I am faced with a situation where I NEED to use my bail out (aka Pony) bottle, it will be because the crap hit the fan and I will be under a lot of stress already and don’t need to add one more task to perform, possibly while getting ready to breath water.

It is not a big deal to open the valve, I had to do it in a real situation when my buddy had a failure, you just donate your reg, take the pony and open the valve. All needs to be done is practice it. Having the valve open is the invitation for a trouble to happen, you can loose your gas easy by accidently hitting something with the purge and in cold water introduce a free flow.
 
It is not a big deal to open the valve, I had to do it in a real situation when my buddy had a failure, you just donate your reg, take the pony and open the valve. All needs to be done is practice it. Having the valve open is the invitation for a trouble to happen, you can loose your gas easy by accidently hitting something with the purge and in cold water introduce a free flow.

I have never seen anybody be able to reach the valve on a pony bottle strapped to their cylinder :confused: are you talking about a stage?
 

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