Primary donate in UK ice-cold water

[Divin'Papaw]

I'm recently preparing for my next GUE Tech 1 course but also have joined a new local BSAC club as part of my plan to get into a local diving community.

I notice that BSAC does not really officially sponsor the "primary donate" techniques - and after reading a few of their arguments, I start to make sense of it: primary donate involves removal and replacement of a "flowing" regulator, which increases its risk to freeflow and regulator freezing especially in ice-cold water.

However, I believe everyone has a clear and good reason (especially in this sub-forum here) why they use primary donate + a long hose and stop using an octopus. There have been numerous occasions in the past where I saw a octo diver cannot find their octos when needed, because they have been accidentally taken out of the stowage position by currents/entanglement/themselves when blowing an open-ended dSMB, and developed this into a panick.

I just did a sport diver pool training with the local club, in jacket and secondary-donate octopus, and I saw other students taking at least 10 seconds to resume breathing from the secondary octo because of the various reasons their buddies' octos were either displaced or got stuck in the jacket that they could not remove without excessive force. It should have taken me 10 seconds to pull out the stuck octo hose from my buddy, whereas even two months before taking my first Fundies class my buddy and I could do a primary donate drill and resume breathing within 2 seconds maximum.

This question is really targeting those who've been diving extensively in the UK or other similarly cold places - do you think regulator freeflowing is a big and bad issue? And do you think there's a reason to NOT use primary donate as stated above?

P.S.: I'm now using a set of diaphram regs with freezing kits, which are supposed to reduce the risk of a freeflowing. However, I do have a set of piston regulators that I might use from time to time, despite the last time I used it at the sheering cold 5 degrees celsius it just works as normal.

Poppycock. We practice and train for primary donate in the Great Lakes here in the US. Upper 30s to low 40s F at depth year-round. If we can practice primary donate at those temps, it works just fine in all temps. You just learn to angle the regulator mouthpiece down as you're removing it from your mouth and offering it to the OOA (or simulated OOA) diver. Easy peazy. I've never had a free-flow doing primary donate dozens and dozens of times in those temps in quarries and the Great Lakes.

 

[DiveLikeAMuppet]

Outside of few places in Scotland you would be hard pressed to find anything below 6 degrees in the winter and primary donate in 6 degrees is not really a problem. I doubt the procedure has anything to do with a freeflow.

The primary concern of BSAC is to make club diving safe and to enable all kinds of divers to dive and get trained by all kinds of volunteer instructors. So the standard training focuses on not creating another casualty. BSAC doesn't teach overhead so turning into a starfish / seahorse or finning up in a cloud of silt is simply not a concern.

Whether teaching secondary take with the proliferation of rebreathers and people having random cylinders with unbreathable gases on them is safe is debatable but it does work in a typical club that won't go diving out of season and may not have the resources for primary donate training.

 

[Fat old english bloke]

Never had a free-flow issue donating or swapping SM regs in cold UK waters. As stated above though, it’s rarely that cold at most UK sites - the only time it really gets absolutely bitterly cold in my experience is in Wraysbury during a particularly cold winter or Croesor, which I think was about 5degC when I’ve visited.

No point me adding anything on BSAC/PD/etc.

 

[Ontwreckdiver]

There have been numerous occasions in the past where I saw a octo diver cannot find their octos when needed, because they have been accidentally taken out of the stowage position by currents/entanglement/themselves when blowing an open-ended dSMB, and developed this into a panick.

Just use a necklace for your octo and hang it around your neck, problem solved. They even come in octo yellow. Highland Silicone Regulator Necklace — XS Scuba - Everything For The Perfect Dive
This is what I use.

 

[Umuntu]

Both primary and secondary donate work with appropriate training and drills for everyone in a dive group. In spite of what you may read on Scubaboard, secondary donate is the most widely accepted configuration across all divers globally.

Use the same configuration as the group / buddy that you are diving with have been trained to use and are comfortable using in an emergency.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

In spite of what you may read on Scubaboard, secondary donate is the most widely accepted configuration across all divers globally.

That doesn't mean it is a better configuration. It is the most widely used simply because it is what the majority of divers are taught, and they never give it a second thought after OW. Many others, who have given it further thought, have switched to primary donate.

Use the same configuration as the group / buddy that you are diving with have been trained to use and are comfortable using in an emergency.

You seem to be proposing either: (1) that you switch configurations based upon who you happen to be diving with at any given time, or (2) you only dive with the same group of buddies all the time. Neither is practical.

 

[Umuntu]

Here come the primary donate evangelists …

That doesn't mean it is a better configuration.

Did I say either configuration was “better”? I did say …

Both primary and secondary donate work with appropriate training and drills for everyone in a dive group.

It doesn’t matter which configuration is theoretically “better” if the other people in your group have no training or familiarity with it.

You seem to be proposing either: (1) that you switch configurations based upon who you happen to be diving with at any given time,

I would support this approach. There is no value in trying to be the odd one out …

Standardisation of a team’s equipment configuration is an important principle.