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

[rsingler]

Calculating Rock Bottom counts as dive planning, no? At least you plan that for that depth, yes?

And then at 30m single tank, having to think about a potential OOA buddy, maybe you wish you had a pony, so you could dive longer?

 

[Nemrod]

This puts it nicely:

The probability of successful redundancy deployment would go up with experience, yes. Yet the base level switching to a necklaced reg should be very easy in any case, which is certainly possible with a pony mounted as either tiny side or on the back (or with full sidemount or ID doubles).

Pony as travel tiny sidemount is the clear win for me (or sidemounting full size tanks).

Nothing keeps us from necklacing the pony second stage. The hose (60 inch) is doubled under rubber bands on the pony, slung left side, the hose then comes up and around behind the divers neck just as any long hose and is then retained by a necklace.

I quit necklacing my pony second stage, well not entirely, because I generally dive a double hose regulator and the "Hog-looped" regulator on a necklace is trapped under the double hose loop. Therefore in such configuration I secure the second stage using a snorkel keeper on the pony valve and the rig has a 40 inch hose. A 60 inch hose is just too much for me to rubber band to the pony entirely.

I understand that some CCR divers allow for their, in this case, necklaced long hose seconday or bailout, to be trapped under their CCR hose loop. To deploy, the bailout, they must close their DSV, remove the loop from their mouth, hand off the necklaced long hose from around their neck to the OOA diver and then get back on their CCR and open the DSV. I probably left out some important stuff there. But, similarly I would have to do the same thing to deploy a long hose necklaced octopus (sourced from a pony bottle in this case) if on my double hose regulator, which does also have a DSV. What a PITA. No, instead I just leave the back up regulator looped and banded on my aux bottle.

Either way it is not exactly a challenge to deploy the pony regulator. Keep in mind that in my case I am using a pony because I am single tank solo. I do not but rarely use a pony when buddy diving to repeat myself.

James

 

[Searcaigh]

In reality there are only two types of diving. Recreational and Commercial with the latter governed by typically workplace legislation and the former covered by no legislation in many countries. It is probably a subject for another thread, this one has dragged on long enough. Within recreational there are many types but only governed by independent bodies who set their own rules for their members not by legislation in most countries.

Bang on

Recreational dives (including technical ones) are for fun

Commercial dives you get paid

 

[jadairiii]

No need to listen to something not related to the topic at hand.

You should listen to it, it is related to the topic at hand. Specifically, the things you dont know, you dont know.

 

[scubaozy]

CESA at birth! you do know what function the umbilical cord serves don't you.

This is SB, there will be someone with umbilical failure or someone who knows someone who had it.

The diver had a pony with him which he failed to deploy, that is no more the fault of the pony than a seatbelt that isn't fastened is responsible for someone being thrown through the windshield.

Seatbelt is a passive device once you buckle up it is in use, pointless to discuss or compare. According to the neutral data, people do fail to use the pony correctly or not able deploy when needed. That is that. You are making too many assumptions, I don't, I look at the data and probabilities. People prepare for events for years and yet still fail to perform at that critical moment. There is no guarantee that you will not fail one critical moment even you are prepared.

When a diver descends on his O2 deco bottle toxes and dies do you blame it on the deco bottle or on diver error

Again, weird, irrelevant example. The way I interpret this is diving with multi gases can be fatal. I do not blame the gear or the diver. There is no data on divers competence except he made this one mistake. You might get killed failing to turn on or check your valve, even you did it 1000 times right.

Two issues, one diver claiming any dive to 120 feet is a technical dive which most agencies would not agree with. The dive I did to 45m was a planned dive.

My TecRec deep diver material from (2001) defines rec scuba as:
No stop diving with air or enriched air to a maximum depth of 40 metres/130 feet, and during penetration dives, within the natural light zone and no more than a total linear distance of 40 metres/130 feet from the surface.
Tech Scuba:
Diving other than conventional commercial or research diving beyond recreational diving limits. Further defined as and includes:
diving beyond 40m/130 feet
required stage decompression
diving in an overhead environment beyond 40 linear metres/130 linear feet of the surface
...

I was doing decompression diving long before recreational tech diving training and equipment was widely available (at least to me) and often casually. Casual does not mean fully unplanned. If you are diving within similar parameters that you did already 100 times, 101st time, your plan becomes do it like the last time +- the parameters that are slightly different for that day.
I consider 50m dive with decompression a "sport" dive, I and many others I know undertook this type of dives pretty quickly after initial certification. You have to remember that other parts of the world people learn with P2 (aowd) gas planning and use Bühlmann or Hahn decompression tables. Depth limits might differ in each country but the knowledge is provided. So staged decompression was part of normal sport diving.

Anyway, lets get back to pony.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Some years ago I took PADI's "Deep" diving course. If I recall, they define "deep" (recreational/sport) as in the 100-130 ft range. I'm sure the course varies a bit by individual instructor, but the message I took away from my course was as if PADI were saying something like: "Deep diving is dangerous, and this course is mostly about how dangerous it is, and we're not advocating that you dive deep. However, if you're going to do it, here are 'some things to consider,' including using a pony bottle. Even though on this course we let you carry and deploy a pony bottle once, this isn't about actually teaching you to dive in the 100-130 ft range." Well, that's how I interpreted it. It was that course that prompted me to go get on a different training path that would actually teach me to safely do whatever kind of dive the course said it taught. PADI's Tec 40 course of their TecRec program, which my instructor didn't mention--maybe it didn't exist at the time--implies a 40m dive is more than a recreational/sport dive, though maybe it depends on whether light deco is involved. I don't know anything about that course beyond what's on PADI's website, so I can't comment.

 

[Wibble]

Nothing keeps us from necklacing the pony second stage. The hose (60 inch) is doubled under rubber bands on the pony, slung left side, the hose then comes up and around behind the divers neck just as any long hose and is then retained by a necklace.

Why necklace the side-slung pony cylinder?

Just have the hose bungeed to the cylinder in the normal "deco cylinder" way, so it's easy to get to.

Then practice with it. Every dive. Until it's really easy to find with your eyes closed. You're also practicing putting the cylinder in front of you, re-stowing the hose, clipping it back on.

Then it's easy to clip to you on the boat; it's easy to deploy; there's nothing to tangle it, etc.

This is what virtually every rebreather diver does.

 

[boulderjohn]

In reality there are only two types of diving. Recreational and Commercial with the latter governed by typically workplace legislation and the former covered by no legislation in many countries. It is probably a subject for another thread, this one has dragged on long enough. Within recreational there are many types but only governed by independent bodies who set their own rules for their members not by legislation in most countries.

Languages evolve constantly. What you are doing here is using one definition of the word "recreational" as a reason to contradict people who are using another very common definition. Divers have been using the word "recreational" to differentiate from "technical" diving for decades. It is a perfectly acceptable use of the term because that is how the overwhelming majority of divers use it and understand it.

For communication to work, you have to accept the definitions of words in their intended context. If someone were to describe me as a nice person, I would not be offended because I know that 500 years ago "nice" meant "silly."

 

[boulderjohn]

PADI's Tec 40 course of their TecRec program, which my instructor didn't mention--maybe it didn't exist at the time--implies a 40m dive is more than a recreational/sport dive, though maybe it depends on whether light deco is involved. I don't know anything about that course beyond what's on PADI's website, so I can't comment.

I don't know when you are talking about, but PADI's Tec Diving program was under the subsidiary DSAT (Diving Science and Technology) until maybe a decade or so ago. The course existed, but there is a good chance your instructor knew nothing about it. There is a very good chance OW instructors in any agency would not know the details about the courses in their agency's tech program.

PADI's Tec 40 class teaches divers to extend their bottom time beyond recreational limits on dives up to 130 feet, which for them is the end of recreational limits. The course teaches divers to dive safely with up to 10 minutes of decompression using up to 50% nitrox for decompression. Unlike most tech programs, the PADI program front loads the academics for the tech program--Tec 40 is the introductory course for the tech program, but it contains most of the theoretical information on decompression diving.

 

[Nemrod]

Why necklace the side-slung pony cylinder?

Just have the hose bungeed to the cylinder in the normal "deco cylinder" way, so it's easy to get to.

Then practice with it. Every dive. Until it's really easy to find with your eyes closed. You're also practicing putting the cylinder in front of you, re-stowing the hose, clipping it back on.

Then it's easy to clip to you on the boat; it's easy to deploy; there's nothing to tangle it, etc.

This is what virtually every rebreather diver does.

As you describe is how I generally rig my auxiliary bottle, I agree. However, it was stated by another poster that the pony bottle regulator might be difficult to deploy because of lack of "muscle" memory. Necklacing the long hose bailout is how it is done in CCR (?) and use of a necklaced long hose on the pony for buddy diving preserves the ability to support an OOA diver with it or to donate a primary (under arm also on a 40 inch hose with right angle swivel at the second stage) and then myself switch to the necklaced (pony) second stage back up.

The back gas regulator is best rigged with a single second stage for the above if necklaced as three second stages for recreational buddy diving might be a bit overboard, but then IMO so is a pony bottle (mostly with exceptions) for recreational sport diving.

That is much more complicated to write than to rig and do.

James