Seems like several feel that pony bottles encourage poor diving practices. If you have questionable diving practices, then, the pony bottle isn't your only potential problem. I use a pony bottle from time to time, mainly for deep dives. IMO, a pony bottle can be a great piece of safety equipment, it sh@! never happened then why do we carry a octo?
Pony tanks Good or Bad? - POLL
- Thread starter Dive Source
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
I'm just cranky because I didn't get to go diving today.ColdH20diving:
But to answer your question... for your buddy.
cornfed
Mindless lemming
snuggle:
Maybe you should spend a little more time picking your buddy instead of buying extra equipment...
Edit: Looks like I'm a little late, you guys seem to have had this discussion last night...
ColdH20diving:
Uncle pug's answer was that we carry an octo for our buddy but that is only half the answer.
Second stages do fail and having an octo is nice as it allows you an alternate second stage to access your primary air supply. We recently had a diver here with a second stage lever that froze up under the ice. The octo came in real handy in his situation and a pony would have worked just as well. In the event of a first stage freeze up, a pony would have in fact been much better.
Under the ice, solo diving is safer and far simpler than trying to manage 2 divers and 2 lines under the water at once. A pony provides additional saftey without the weight or bulk of doubles on what are normally relatively short and shallow dives.
For solo diving in general an Air 2 offers the same alternate access to the primary air supply if the primary second stage fails and does it without adding another hose or another conventional second stage to get in the way of or be confused with the second stage off a pony. A pony then provides a completely redundant system in case of a first stage failure. In situations where the volume of air provided by doubles is not required, a pony is a very valid option for a solo diver.
Uncle Pug:
I will try this one more time from a different angle.
Lets forget about running out of gas because there was some type of problem that prevented a diver from returning to the surface at the plan time or turn pressure. Because we all know that your buddy will be right by your side because buddies never get separated.
What would happen if you had an equipment problem? Lets say a blown o-ring which let all of your gas to escape. Would a pony bottle be a reasonable thing to have?
Uncle Pug:
Who says they didn't address the issue(s)? My friend certainly understands what he did wrong - having your life flash before your eyes has a way of doing that. He has openly admitted that what he did was stupid.
Nonetheless, how many "stupids" do you get before you cack yourself? If the answer is "zero", then leave ALL your redundancy at home. You don't need any of it. No octo, indeed, not even an SPG (you DO know your breathing rate, right?)
Now at some point the amount of additional equipment you need to carry in order to get an additional layer of redundancy gets overwhelming. For example, a set of doubles CAN fail catastrophically (e.g. both crossbar connections failing, or both tank neck O-rings.) So do we bring a stage to counteract that? No, generally (unless we need the gas!) because the additional weight/drag/hassle outweighs the risk. I could have a triple light failure, but I could also get tangled in the sixteen lights to cover the "N"th light failure too.
As for the "your buddy has the extra gas", that's a nice sentiment. We've been over it in another thread; I believe that there are both risks and benefits to buddy diving, and that expecting mechanical levels of reliability from people is foolhardy. As such, I equip myself with my own redundancy - for shallow (under 60fsw) dives its typically the surface, between that and 100' in open water with a single tank its a pony, and below that, or for an overhead (virtual or real, or if I just feel like it) its a set of doubles.
I don't mind buddy diving with people who are competent and safe divers, but I will dive solo rather than not dive at all, because I simply don't find the presence of a buddy to be a significant safety factor.
This would not be true if I did not carry my own redundancy though.
Genesis:
This is the real point isn't it? There are some dives where we do bring extra gas just in case. These dives are usually very deep and/or an overhead with long penetration. Same principle as a pony right? Only these dives are way beyond anything that the typical recreational diver will ever do and I don't do many of them either.
In a recreational context using what I consider appropriate equipment for a dive and a what I consider a useable configuration and good procedures, I see more disadvantage to an extra tank of just in case gas. The need for it seems most often imagined or created by what consider poor habits and techniques.
if I had to do a solo cave dive I would carry a buddy bottle even wearing doubles.
The Christmas tree configurations that are so common just become that much more of a mess with the addition of a pony bottle. It is really hard to discuss the merit of the addition of a pony bottle when you have a mess as a starting point.
Similar threads
