Questions about history of octos...

[CharlieDontDive]

1.) When use of an octopus/backup second stage become the norm? I know that for a long time they simply were not a thing, now they’re essentially mandatory.

2.) Before the octo era, what were OW students taught to do in the event of a freeflow at depth or an OOA situation?

 

[lexvil]

1.) When use of an octopus/backup second stage become the norm? I know that for a long time they simply were not a thing, now they’re essentially mandatory.

2.) Before the octo era, what were OW students taught to do in the event of a freeflow at depth or an OOA situation?

Buddy breathing

 

[AfterDark]

1.) When use of an octopus/backup second stage become the norm? I know that for a long time they simply were not a thing, now they’re essentially mandatory.

2.) Before the octo era, what were OW students taught to do in the event of a freeflow at depth or an OOA situation?

During the double hose era there was no octo. In an OOA situation divers shared air from the same regulator passing the mouthpiece back and forth between them. It looked like this:

That practice continued with single hose regulators at first then sometime during the late 1960's to the early 1970's after single hose regulators became popular, octos came into use
Also around that time the auto inflator and the SPG came into wide use. Three giant strides in scuba gear.

 

[roakey]

And the big 3 safety advances (SPG, Octo and BCs) all came from cave diving. Though in cave diving we don't have an octo, we have a backup.

...then marketing departments got involved and everything has been downhill in recreational equipment ever since...

Roak

 

[AfterDark]

And the big 3 safety advances (SPG, Octo and BCs) all came from cave diving. Though in cave diving we don't have an octo, we have a backup.

...then marketing departments got involved and everything has been downhill in recreational equipment ever since...

Roak

Correct don't forget SM, and can lights and other goodies that cave divers influenced. I suspect wreck divers influenced these developments also.

 

[Akimbo]

And the big 3 safety advances (SPG, Octo and BCs) all came from cave diving.

Can you support that statement? It is inconsistent with everything I know about the history of dive gear. SPGs go back at least to the 1950s, Octos and BCs to the 1960s or before.

 

[roakey]

Can you support that statement? It is inconsistent with everything I know about the history of dive gear. SPGs go back at least to the 1950s, Octos and BCs to the 1960s or before.

I'm not going to go digging, but when I took my Basic SCUBA class in the early 70s, we learned buddy breathing (both one and two hose regulators). My Dacor Olympic (800? 400?) I think had one HP port and two LP ports, so though they could suport an SPG and octo, but the use of either was not taught, nor part of the "standard" recreational equipment.

In fact, the Dacor 800 had the ability to put an optional J valve on the regulator so you could use the more inexpensive K valves (see picture below).

Literally, our dive plans were typically "You can't get bent on a 72, dive until you need to pull the J valve, then surface".

My how times have changed.

The Dacor catalog (one of the the "recreational" standards of the time) had J valves and vests, but no SPGs or BCs that I can remember. The vest was for surface support only - it'd strangle you if you tried to use it underwater...

When I took up cave diving I became aware of the developement timeline of backup regulators, BCs (initially milk jugs) and SPGs in the sport because of the need to supply air during long a egress, compensating for large swings in bouyancy due to multiple cylinders of gas and gas management, respectively. That development was all going on during the 60s and maybe even the late 50s.

I would not be surprised if SPGs and octos were in use somewhere in the timeframe you mentioned but their first "widespread" (if you can call anything cave diving widespread) use was cave diving.

Roak

 

[aviator8]

During the double hose era there was no octo. In an OOA situation divers shared air from the same regulator passing the mouthpiece back and forth between them. It looked like this:
View attachment 538482

That practice continued with single hose regulators at first then sometime during the late 1960's to the early 1970's after single hose regulators became popular, octos came into use
Also around that time the auto inflator and the SPG came into wide use. Three giant strides in scuba gear.

Hey I have that book! It is the first book I ever read on scuba as a kid. I just reread it, good stuff.

 

[Akimbo]

I would not be surprised if SPGs and octos were in use somewhere in the timeframe you mentioned but their first "widespread" (if you can call anything cave diving widespread) use was cave diving.

I suppose it depends on when you think cave diving became a significant specialty. Granted, Cousteau's team was diving caves in the late 1940s and Connie Limbaugh died in a cave in 1960, but cave diving had no impact on dive equipment development at that point.

SPGs, Octos, and BCs dominated recreational diving decades before US cave divers had any impact on the industry. SPGs were certainly common, if not dominant, in the US by the mid 1960s and Octos by 1970. Horse collars, wings, and jackets BCs were in widespread use by 1980, especially in diving classes.

I don't believe that cave diving was a significant influence with manufacturers beyond developing isolation manifolds.

 

[BackAfter30]

1.) When use of an octopus/backup second stage become the norm? I know that for a long time they simply were not a thing, now they’re essentially mandatory.

2.) Before the octo era, what were OW students taught to do in the event of a freeflow at depth or an OOA situation?

I don't have a definitive answer for you but...I got my ccard in '86. At that time safety second stage (then, octopus refered to the whole reg kit, as it then had four (??? not eight???) legs to it) was a thing but wasn't considered required gear. It was certainly not used by those of us so young that we barely had enough money to get into this sport. A freeflow was solved the same way it is now. OOA, as already mentioned above, was by buddy breathing, which was the passing back and forth of your buddy team's only working reg.