Recreational Pony Bottles, completely unnecessary? Why or why not?

[elan]

I think it’s an interesting thread that shows various ways to think about what redundancy means and how to achieve it. There’s no downside to preparing for a lost/distracted/narced buddy and a catastrophic tank/first stage failure at the same time.

Personally, this thread encouraged me to understand all the different tank and regulator failure modes more deeply and ultimately led me down the road of sanitizing by bcd bladder and practicing emergency breathes from it. Through testing on land, I found that its not out of the question for me to make a cesa from 120’ after a failure that causes no air on a full exhale (60 second breath hold from full exhale followed by 2 short breaths from bcd).

My hard and fast plan is and always will be having properly maintained equipment, pre dive checklists (equipment and procedure with buddy), dive plan with rock bottom calculation, and mindful use of the buddy system.

I hope I never have to perform a real cesa, but simulating one from 120’ has proven interesting insight into what I’m capable of.

When doing CESA from 120ft your air in the lungs will expand and the partial pressure of CO2 - the trigger of the urge to breath will also be dropping. I once did an ascend from 90 ft and it feels like you keep going, exhaling and it never stops and you do not want to breath.

Breathing from BCD will not provide much gas as if weighed properly you would only have half an lung volume in it. And I wish you luck to get all that air out in an emergency.

 

[Alurpal]

I once did an ascend from 90 ft

Was it part of training or actual emergency?

Breathing from BCD will not provide much gas as if weighed properly

My understanding is any air in it will expand as you ascend and will become more available. But… I can see how toward the end of my dive with an aluminum tank and no wetsuit, I may have no air in the bc. Good to think about.

I do want to stress that this whole bcd breathing thing is really an exercise in confidence for me. I think a confident diver is less prone to panic when something goes wrong. And I do not think of it as a replacement of anything else in my training, just a last resort.

 

[Wibble]

Isn’t life so much simpler if you just have a reserve gas source and regularly practice using it…

 

[elan]

Was it part of training or actual emergency?

It was part of the training. I had other air “emergencies” like free flowing regulators later but at that time I already had a redundant gas source so it was mitigated.

 

[grf88]

A lot of people tend to assume that a practice is the same as a real emergency. Typically it is not although I do remember one instance where discussing all the procedures that we would follow in a free-flow situation actually went like clockwork but only one instance.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

You don't trust your buddy?

Buddy separation happens. The GUE Seattle guys did a nice writeup when a series of problems occured including buddy separation.

When a bunch of T2 divers can get separated, that refutes the idea that team diving is fail-safe

 

[KenGordon]

I think it’s an interesting thread that shows various ways to think about what redundancy means and how to achieve it. There’s no downside to preparing for a lost/distracted/narced buddy and a catastrophic tank/first stage failure at the same time.

Personally, this thread encouraged me to understand all the different tank and regulator failure modes more deeply and ultimately led me down the road of sanitizing by bcd bladder and practicing emergency breathes from it. Through testing on land, I found that its not out of the question for me to make a cesa from 120’ after a failure that causes no air on a full exhale (60 second breath hold from full exhale followed by 2 short breaths from bcd).

My hard and fast plan is and always will be having properly maintained equipment, pre dive checklists (equipment and procedure with buddy), dive plan with rock bottom calculation, and mindful use of the buddy system.

I hope I never have to perform a real cesa, but simulating one from 120’ has proven interesting insight into what I’m capable of.

Emergency Breathing from Your BCD: Undercurrent 06/2011 talks about the bloke who died from a fungal infection from a BCD. It also points out the risk of getting a mouthful of water when first sucking on the hose.

If you are at 120ft you absolutely must have either a proper buddy or redundant gas. The nitrogen loading will arrive fast and even if you make it to the surface without drowning or an embolism you still have to get away with not getting bent.

 

[jadairiii]

Forgive me for not reading 27 pages of responses. The question is "recreational" pony bottles. If you are doing a "recreational dive" you do not need an back-up gas source. Should you find yourself in need of one, this issue was poor planning/training, and in that case even a pony bottle may not resolve poor planning/training. All it becomes is a crutch for poor diving skills.

Sure, we can create "what if" scenarios that would validate the use of one, but all become either non-recreational dives, or such abject stupidity that the diver should not have been in the water in the first place.

Again, dont use a crutch when better training and better fitness solves the real problem.

 

[tursiops]

Forgive me for not reading 27 pages of responses. The question is "recreational" pony bottles. If you are doing a "recreational dive" you do not need an back-up gas source. Should you find yourself in need of one, this issue was poor planning/training, and in that case even a pony bottle may not resolve poor planning/training. All it becomes is a crutch for poor diving skills.

Sure, we can create "what if" scenarios that would validate the use of one, but all become either non-recreational dives, or such abject stupidity that the diver should not have been in the water in the first place.

Again, dont use a crutch when better training and better fitness solves the real problem.

LOL. You really should have read the other posts!

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

@jadairiii

Buddy separation happens, even with GUE T2 divers. Combined that with catastrophic gas loss and you'll be happy to have a pony .

You can respond 'think of the chances...'

No argument there, but the chances of catastrophic gas loss is still there and people do experience it, even first stages failing shut

It a depends on the level of risk you wish to assume. This is going to vary per individual.