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

[Celt]

Some just like a belt and braces, for me I’d use neither just pull the pants back up. If I could get away with holding my breath long enough I’d get rid of the tanks.

 

[Gandalf-the-Diver]

For redundancy you don’t need 3 tanks. Why don’t you start and breath down with the stage to a certain pressure and then start using your single tank/backgas ?

Or just use doubles instead of 3 tanks. If I would use doubles/sidemount for a cave dive I don’t need a third tank for redundancy.

The stage use was a one shot thingy ... normally, my steel 100cu is plenty. Since the stage btl, (40) becomes pos buoyant when empty, I would use it last, reserving enough air in my main for bcd and drysuit in my main.
The redundancy is in the pony. The stage btl adds gas to gas planning.

 

[barth]

The stage use was a one shot thingy ... normally, my steel 100cu is plenty. Since the stage btl, (40) becomes pos buoyant when empty, I would use it last, reserving enough air in my main for bcd and drysuit in my main.
The redundancy is in the pony. The stage btl adds gas to gas planning.

You don’t need a third bottle for redundancy which is not part of your gasplanning if you’re already using 2 tanks for a rec dive.

Just use 2 tanks and a planning which makes sense.

When I do use doubles in openwater and a bottomstage (80) I start with the stage. A positive buoyant tank is not a problem/issue. I guess all gue tech 2 divers start with their bottomstage and use that before they will use backgas.

Using 3 tanks for redundancy during a rec dive doesn’t make sense.

 

[Angelo Farina]

How the hell did a downstream valve fail closed?

When it happened to my son, on a Scubapro MK5, it was rust from the tank which clogged entirely the concave filter... A rented tank, of course, which was possibly badly maintained or had water inside.
The reg was not entirely dead, it did supply a very limited air flow, which allowed him to ascend slowly without any serious risk.

 

[jadairiii]

No! your GUE is showing and not the modern GUE but the one more akin to 20+years ago when it was more GI3/DIR. Where I am a dive to 120' on a single is a common occurrence and more than 50% of the divers will be carrying a pony.

Ya, guilty as charged. But I think you missed my point, the question was "recreational" pony bottles. You're comfortable and squared away to do a 120' dive with a larger bottle and back-up, it may be a "recreational" dive to you, but it sure as heck aint a recreational dive to 99% of the "recreational" divers you see on dive boats in the Keys (or anywhere else).

I've done plenty of dives deep on single Alum 80's and came up within a large safety margin of gas, but I'm not going to state it was a "recreational" dive. I was diving the top of the deep Jupiter ledge (north of Hole in the Wall) with a "recreational" diver, I had to chase him to 140' and pull him off the bottom, he was "lost". Had to rescue a woman 2 years ago on a "recreational" wreck dive with a max depth of 115, should have never been on that dive. I was on a dive club dive not too long ago, full boat, all the divers had the latest equipment, even some BP/wing set ups, after watching them on 2 shallow reefs, not one of them i would feel comfortable taking below 60'.....that's why I stopped diving cattle boats for the most part, too much like a horror show.

My point is that most recreational divers should not be going below 80' (and even that is pushing it for a lot of divers) for the most part, going deeper the rules change and it becomes a gray area of rec/tec. We as tech/experienced divers need to make that clear to new divers. When they ask a question about recreational diving, keep it to recreational profiles. More gear, more task loading. My .02 cents.

 

[Rukkian]

Ya, guilty as charged. But I think you missed my point, the question was "recreational" pony bottles. You're comfortable and squared away to do a 120' dive with a larger bottle and back-up, it may be a "recreational" dive to you, but it sure as heck aint a recreational dive to 99% of the "recreational" divers you see on dive boats in the Keys (or anywhere else).

I've done plenty of dives deep on single Alum 80's and came up within a large safety margin of gas, but I'm not going to state it was a "recreational" dive. I was diving the top of the deep Jupiter ledge (north of Hole in the Wall) with a "recreational" diver, I had to chase him to 140' and pull him off the bottom, he was "lost". Had to rescue a woman 2 years ago on a "recreational" wreck dive with a max depth of 115, should have never been on that dive. I was on a dive club dive not too long ago, full boat, all the divers had the latest equipment, even some BP/wing set ups, after watching them on 2 shallow reefs, not one of them i would feel comfortable taking below 60'.....that's why I stopped diving cattle boats for the most part, too much like a horror show.

My point is that most recreational divers should not be going below 80' (and even that is pushing it for a lot of divers) for the most part, going deeper the rules change and it becomes a gray area of rec/tec. We as tech/experienced divers need to make that clear to new divers. When they ask a question about recreational diving, keep it to recreational profiles. More gear, more task loading. My .02 cents.

Just because there are bad divers out there does not make a 120' dive a tech dive. I am not a technical diver, but have gone over 100' many times. I never hit ndl and don't go into overhead environments, which is what makes a dive a tech dive. These are all rec dives.

My last was a wall dive in an abandoned quarry. We got to 122'. I was on 30% nitrox. My myself and my buddy had al80's and surfaced (after 5 min safety stops) with just under 1k psi. Was this somehow a tech dive to you?

 

[jadairiii]

My last was a wall dive in an abandoned quarry. We got to 126'. I was on 30% nitrox. My myself and my buddy had al80's and surfaced (after 5 min safety stops) with just under 1k psi. Was this somehow a tech dive to you?

What was your total bottom time? And what is your definition of "just under 1K"?

 

[Rukkian]

What was your total bottom time? And what is your definition of "just under 1K"?

980psi if you need specifics. 31 minutes, but not sure why that matters, as I was never had less than 5 min of ndl time remaining.

Are you just going to rewrite the book on what constitutes a "tech" dive?

 

[Alurpal]

For those of you who dive single tank plus pony for redundancy only, do you 1. Still have two second stages on your back air plus additional on pony?

 

[Rukkian]

For those of you who dive single tank plus pony for redundancy only, do you 1. Still have two second stages on your back air plus additional on pony?

Everybody I know that does that still has an octo.