In my sidemount training, we worked on feathering valves. It's pretty easy, and there would not be as much lost as you might think. You barely have to crack the valve, and very briefly, to get a breath.
Recreational Pony Bottles, completely unnecessary? Why or why not?
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Why did I suspect @boulderjohn might have an anecdote to share? 
Great as usual, John.
Not that I have gotten that far in the GUE course progression, but my GUE instructors have always been able to explain why something is done the way it is. I felt that was one of their strong points. Other agencies and instructors may have reasons for doing things differently, and if they can articulate why, that sits fine with me, too. However, I once had a highly regarded instructor explain several different popular ways of doing something and the pros and cons of each, and while I admired that effort and open-mindedness very much, it only sowed uncertainty in my mind.
If someone could articulate exactly what combinations of conditions means a gear configuration consisting of a single tank and a pony would be optimal, I'd like to hear it. Making good decisions requires knowing what all the inputs are and what weights to give them. Obviously depth is one, but what is the threshold? Visibility and current and their effect on the likelihood of buddy separation have been mentioned, but it's hard to know what these will be like before leaving for the dive site or trip. Low-vis, high-current, 100-ft+ dives--I'm not going to do that in any gear configuration. It just seems simpler to me to have some clear thresholds and not get into the position of making these judgment calls on whether this is a dive to take the pony or a dive I can leave it at home.
From what I've read about Bill Hogarth Main--haven't met him--he was a big proponent of minimalism, but the idea of standardization was not part of the original "Hogarthian" philosophy.
Great as usual, John.Not that I have gotten that far in the GUE course progression, but my GUE instructors have always been able to explain why something is done the way it is. I felt that was one of their strong points. Other agencies and instructors may have reasons for doing things differently, and if they can articulate why, that sits fine with me, too. However, I once had a highly regarded instructor explain several different popular ways of doing something and the pros and cons of each, and while I admired that effort and open-mindedness very much, it only sowed uncertainty in my mind.
If someone could articulate exactly what combinations of conditions means a gear configuration consisting of a single tank and a pony would be optimal, I'd like to hear it. Making good decisions requires knowing what all the inputs are and what weights to give them. Obviously depth is one, but what is the threshold? Visibility and current and their effect on the likelihood of buddy separation have been mentioned, but it's hard to know what these will be like before leaving for the dive site or trip. Low-vis, high-current, 100-ft+ dives--I'm not going to do that in any gear configuration. It just seems simpler to me to have some clear thresholds and not get into the position of making these judgment calls on whether this is a dive to take the pony or a dive I can leave it at home.
From what I've read about Bill Hogarth Main--haven't met him--he was a big proponent of minimalism, but the idea of standardization was not part of the original "Hogarthian" philosophy.
Same in mine. I am wondering what issues @Gareth J has with feathering. If a reg fails shut (extremely unlikely but possible), then there's reg swapping. But I suspect that practice is reserved for caves.
As Dan Volker explained it, people loved the innovations he created for WKPP, but at one point they thought they (mostly he) had perfected things, and once perfected, they had to be standardized. He was very much part of those times. He then kept irking the rest by continuing to innovate after perfection had been achieved.
It’s the rule of thirds.
You breathe from both sides, switching regs as you switch sides.
In an overhead you have a hard rule of thirds. 1/3 in, 1/3 out, 1/3 for reserve. Should one side go pop then you’ve got 1/3 left. Mostly you’d be more conservative, 1/4 or less.
In open water, it’s the same as you’ll always aim to surface with 50 bar which is the reserve you’d use. If it went pop at the very end of the bottom time, you’d still have enough to ascend to your first switch or the surface.
But as all the hardware is in front of you, you can tighten up the valve, or easily feather the broken side as it’s in front of you.
Granted you won’t do deep in sidemount unless you’re really keen.
I do a lot of diving in a lake in New Mexico with a maximum depth of 280 feet/85 meters. The sidemount divers in our group regularly go to the bottom.
That’s why one wouldn’t do deep on sidemount— and SM's a bloody PITA with more than one stage. Not least as normal stages aren’t streamlined.
Have seen the videos of Steve Martin in sidemount and four ali80 stages. Nice. However, back on planet normal people, there’s limits to sidemount where other technologies are far superior. CCR, struth, even backmount!
Blackcrusader
Contributor
Wow this thread really went off the rails. Firstly pretty much most recreational divers are single tank divers and as I dive on vacation most of the divers are on their vacation dives. Let's put aside the deco dives or dives with an overhead where for some people they think of that as technical diving. I for one do not gas plan multilevel recreational dives and I also do not see the need to carry a pony bottle. I won't object if I had a dive buddy who carried one. I've had that when solo certified divers have let me accompany them on dives. Sometimes it is just me and a regular guide diving which allows us much more freedom on a dive. Sometimes there are instructors I know who want to do deep recreational dives when not teaching and we also do not gas plan the dives but do have a dive plan and no pony bottles. After all we do want to boat captions to know where we expect to be picked up and our expected dive time.
Yes I like to dive in Asia and often that means having a guide on the dive with a group of divers. When I am with regular dive buddies we tend to more or less stay in sight of the guide but we do our own dives otherwise. As I am with a buddy we don't feel it is necessary to have a pony. I could always sling an extra AL 80 with a set of regulators if I felt the need to bring an extra tank. I have done that on a couple of dives where my regs have been serviced and first dive back in the water with them I do half the dive on primary reg and switch to secondary for the next half of the dive. Sometimes on recreational dives you will run across people who dive side mount even on dives to 25m max depth. I dive for the fun of it and I assume we all do. Some recreational dive operations don't have divers doing deco dives even if deco certified that is the way they run their operations as their guides are often not deco certified.
Most of the divers on this thread seem to be certified for Deco and mixed gas diving... I guess we can include Nitrox certified as mixed gas.. In my last decade of recreational diving I have yet to see anyone gas plan a recreational non deco multilevel dive. Sometimes I do gas plans before a dive on my Shearwater, but that really is for the fun of gas planning and seeing if that matches up with gas consumption for the actual dive. Not many of the recreational divers I meet know their SAC rates, they don't know about GF or Surf GF, CNS PPO2 etc as they just do dives and not go into deco.
Should dive operators be teaching recreational divers to bring a pony? I would say they would not be interested in that as then they need to provide pony bottles. I've yet to see a dive operation offer pony bottles for rent they seem to be an individual diver who brings their own.
Yes I like to dive in Asia and often that means having a guide on the dive with a group of divers. When I am with regular dive buddies we tend to more or less stay in sight of the guide but we do our own dives otherwise. As I am with a buddy we don't feel it is necessary to have a pony. I could always sling an extra AL 80 with a set of regulators if I felt the need to bring an extra tank. I have done that on a couple of dives where my regs have been serviced and first dive back in the water with them I do half the dive on primary reg and switch to secondary for the next half of the dive. Sometimes on recreational dives you will run across people who dive side mount even on dives to 25m max depth. I dive for the fun of it and I assume we all do. Some recreational dive operations don't have divers doing deco dives even if deco certified that is the way they run their operations as their guides are often not deco certified.
Most of the divers on this thread seem to be certified for Deco and mixed gas diving... I guess we can include Nitrox certified as mixed gas.. In my last decade of recreational diving I have yet to see anyone gas plan a recreational non deco multilevel dive. Sometimes I do gas plans before a dive on my Shearwater, but that really is for the fun of gas planning and seeing if that matches up with gas consumption for the actual dive. Not many of the recreational divers I meet know their SAC rates, they don't know about GF or Surf GF, CNS PPO2 etc as they just do dives and not go into deco.
Should dive operators be teaching recreational divers to bring a pony? I would say they would not be interested in that as then they need to provide pony bottles. I've yet to see a dive operation offer pony bottles for rent they seem to be an individual diver who brings their own.
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