Purpose of long 2nd stage hose

[Rhone Man]

Anecdote that may help (or not). I dive with a long hose when I am penetrating, but in open water I used keep it to a short hose, mainly because the way I stow my long hose is a PITA (I'm not DIR, so apologies for the intrusion).

In January I had to do a longish swim (250 yards or so) sharing air with a diver on the short hose, and the PITA factor is heavily swung to the other side of equation when you need to use that second stage. Sharing gas may be a mercifully rare event, but you shouldn't let that drive your planning.

 

[fisheater]

My OW anecdote:

During Reef Check California training, my buddy went OOG in the midst of a large, very thick bed of giant kelp. With a short hose, I had no choice but to go straight up after I donated. That meant a very long, tedious, PITA and unnecessary kelp crawl back to the boat.

With a long hose, I could have (a) shared air at the safety stop before my buddy was totally OOG, (b) swam
back to the boat underwater, either before or after surfacing, (c) done exactly what I was forced to do with the short hose. In other words, a long hose would have given me (and my buddy) a number of options.

BTW, that was the last dive with a short hose for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[elan]

your uneducated assumption would be wrong. you should go do some work researching why its wrong.

The SB would probably have no topics created and the traffic would drop to near 0

 

[mikemill]

The SB would probably have no topics created and the traffic would drop to near 0

Which is a bad thing?

 

[rjack321]

Wow, way to keep the answers helpful, welcoming, and in general DIR alignment. I had a so-so weekend diving on the wreck that wasn't too, but I'm not gonna take my "Mondays" out on the innocent or naive.

 

[TSandM]

If I donate to someone who is panicked, I'm going to hang onto them. I don't WANT them to be able to get a head of steam up and hit the end of the hose and yank me. The long hose is convenient when you DON'T have a panicked diver, and you can make an orderly retreat. Otherwise, you just don't deploy all of it, and you keep hold of the OOG person, as you were originally taught.