Pull Dumps — lose them

[Umuntu]

An excellent suggestion!
Yet somehow, I suspect uncfnp might differ with you. As will the 25% of my young (usually slender female - just a fact, not sexism) students who just CAN'T get the hose and LPI apart.

I think part of the answer is technique. If you try to directly pull the hose away from the bcd quick connect it locks together even more. You have to push them together first then pull up the hose's release catch, and allow the pressure to help separate the hose from the BCD.

 

[rsingler]

I think part of the answer is technique. If you try to directly pull the hose away from the bcd quick connect it locks together even more. You have to push them together first then pull up the hose's release catch, and allow the pressure to help separate the hose from the BCD.

I'll assume you replied to help the novices that are reading alongside our discussion, so I won't take offense. I hope uncfnp doesn't either, because she is hardly a novice. And maybe I exaggerated, because if those students I referred to CAN'T do it, they can't get certified, in my class.
Let me amend my statement to say that "25% of a certain group has enough trouble performing this skill in a timely fashion, that I make a point of instructing them on various styles of LPI hose, so that they will be safe when they buy or rent equipment."

Did I do better this time?
I'm really not a snarky guy
This is not a comprehension problem for the students. It's a grip strength issue for certain tiny smooth LPI sleeve designs.

 

[uncfnp]

If it were an as easy to do skill as some seem to believe, there would not be flanged hoses, hose hats or BC Shut off devices.

 

[Dan]

If it were an as easy to do skill as some seem to believe, there would not be flanged hoses, hose hats or BC Shut off devices.

As @Umuntu says, it's all about technique. You need to push the LP hose & the power inflator towards each other, slide the barrel or lift the flange of the hat up, then the 150 psig pressure would help you to push the male & female quick connectors apart.

As I posted it earlier, I have DiveAlert in between the LP hose & the power inflator. I can grip the DiveAlert with my left hand and grip the power inflator with my right hand, push them together before sliding up the barrel to unlock the male & female of the quick connect apart.

 

[rsingler]

Hard to easy for small hands, in my experience. The students understand what to do. For some, the strength just isn't there. Bigger sleeves or flanges help, if they fit. Not all do, as you have observed.

I'm sorry, but it's not just "all about technique."
Technique is key, because as you've pointed out, you can't pull them apart. But there are other factors, which aren't intuitively obvious to those that don't have a problem.

I'm sorry @Capt Jim Wyatt. We've really hijacked an entirely different discussion.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

What I don’t understand is why would anybody be weighted to the point that they would not be able to float on the surface with or without a full tank of air?
I haven’t read through all the posts to see if this has been brought up, forgive me if it has.
I always thought a diver was supposed to weight themselves so that they have to swim down, not drop like a rock as soon as any air is dumped from the bladder. Am I missing something?

 

[grf88]

What I don’t understand is why would anybody be weighted to the point that they would not be able to float on the surface with or without a full tank of air?
I haven’t read through all the posts to see if this has been brought up, forgive me if it has.
I always thought a diver was supposed to weight themselves so that they have to swim down, not drop like a rock as soon as any air is dumped from the bladder. Am I missing something?

Depending on your exposure protection and tank capacity it may be difficult to hold a safety stop on an empty tank if you had to swim down a full one.

 

[rsingler]

What I don’t understand is why would anybody be weighted to the point that they would not be able to float on the surface with or without a full tank of air?
I always thought a diver was supposed to weight themselves so that they have to swim down, not drop like a rock as soon as any air is dumped from the bladder. Am I missing something?

At the start of the dive (assuming an 80CF tank) you are carrying 5lb more weight than you will at the end - the air that you are going to breathe out of that tank (0.08 lb/CF).
If you can float at the start of the dive, and "swim down" until wetsuit compression makes you less buoyant, then at the end of the dive you will be whatever your starting buoyancy was, plus an additional five pounds of buoyancy.
As has been pointed out above, that will make it challenging to hold a safety stop, not to mention whatever shallow exploration you planned at the end.

I weight my students at eye level with a normal breath, and an empty BCD. Then we look at their tank contents. If they checked with the classic 500-psi tank, then we just change tanks and go diving. But if they have a full tank, we add whatever weight of air they will breathe off during the dive, which means they are a few pounds heavy at the beginning of the dive, and just a little buoyant at the surface at the end of the dive, which means they should be neutral at the 15-foot stop at the end.
At least that's my technique.

Now, all that said, any single tank diver with fins (even though he/she isn't "floating" at the beginning of the dive), should easily be able to "stay afloat" despite loss of BCD function. And if you drop weights carried because of your neoprene and the air you plan to breathe off, you should be able to float passively without much finning.

 

[BRT]

What I don’t understand is why would anybody be weighted to the point that they would not be able to float on the surface with or without a full tank of air?
I haven’t read through all the posts to see if this has been brought up, forgive me if it has.
I always thought a diver was supposed to weight themselves so that they have to swim down, not drop like a rock as soon as any air is dumped from the bladder. Am I missing something?

How many pounds of air do you have in your full tank? A 100 is about 8 lb. a 130 is about 10.5 lb. If I'm not negative with a full tank I'm going to be buoyant with an empty one.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Hmm, ok.
Maybe in warm water with thinner suits it’s touchier than here using a 7 mil. I weight myself so that I’m neutral at my 15’ stop at the end of the dive with an empty tank (near empty) and a completely empty wing. This works out for me that I can float on the surface with a full tank with no air in my wing. I have to actually swim down to start my dive.
I have worn nothing but a steel 72 on a harness (no BC) in a fresh water pool with board shorts and was perfectly neutral doing doff and don skills back in the days when I was obsessed with vintage diving. I could maintain any depth just by breath control. Floating on the surface was no problem either, neutral is neutral. Compression wasn't a factor because there was no suit to compress and get heavy. With this in mind, doing a 100’ dive the same way in board shorts and no BC shouldn’t make a difference either, especially in salt water.

How come back before there were BC’s nobody ever seemed to have a problem? All this now about potential problems occuring because of faulty BC’s? They just went diving and swam around, even in thicker wetsuits, and not one BC anywhere to he found.
It’s almost like all this new gear gets invented, and then the most common sense thing like proper weighting has somehow just vaporized from todays knowledge base. Think about it.
Someone can’t overcome 5 lbs of extra!!!
Mind boggling?

Out