Recreational rebreathers - what is holding them back?

[BigJetDriver]

Just got off the phone with a buddy of mine. He's training his girlfriend on the sport kiss and he asks her (before breakfast) "you are at 100ft and your po2 is 1.2, what's the content of your loop?"
He's concerned she doesn't get the math for rebreather diving, I'm concerned he's turning into a RB nerd, but in any case these are things OC divers normally don't think about, let alone talk over with their GF first thing in the morning.

This is the reverse of the commercial in which the gal come out wearing a new dress, and asks her hubby: "Does this make me look fat?"

He whips off a quick: "You betcha!" and thereby seals his fate! :11:

It's an easy prediction that this will have much the same kind of result! :kopfab: :rofl:

 

[Scuba_Vixen]

This has been a pretty interesting thread. The fact that you're here reading an RB thread puts you well above the average rec diver, so far as interest in diving is concerned.

Most everyone here, I would bet dives locally and reasonably regularly. That puts you in a different category from the average rec diver.

I don't see where anyone has disagreed that flying an RB requires more cerebral commitment than OC.


Now let's look at the average rec diver. Statistically speaking, most dives that are done, are Not done by frequent divers. The masses of "dive 2 weeks a year while on vacation" divers do most of the diving. Since I'm in one of those locations they frequent, I can tell you that they pay little attention to much of anything for more than a moment. The DM's have to watch their spg's, half can't even manage that. Add something like monitoring PO2, and their brains would totally shut down.

People go on vacations NOT to think. They dive to escape and immerse themselves in a fantasy world for a little while. I see people who shouldn't be near a bathtub, much less the ocean. Some how, they survive OC diving. Mostly it's because the DM's set up their gear, make sure the air's turned on, and check their spg's every so often.

OC is about as idiot proof as going underwater can get. Which explains why there are so many idiots going under water.

Which gets us to why rb's won't make it into the rec arena ...... Dive Operators, being liability conscious, are going to resist rb use as much as possible. They aren't going to invest the $ to buy it for rentals, they don't have the time or manpower to break down and reprep a bunch of RB's between trips for a cattle boat full of divers. They don't have RB trained staff, and that could be a big liability issue if some one on their boat has a problem with their RB, and the DM in the water isn't trained to aid them.

For the majority of rec divers, if they aren't going to stay away from the water, at least staying away from RB's is the next best thing.


Living in paradise makes you cynical,


Darlene

 

[supersport]

this cat has the right idea for people wanting to get into ccr diving..........
myself i plan to build my own ccr without lung bags.......
a new style of ccr (i think).

Unfortunately it’s like many other things.
In the early 90’s Nitrox was called the “Devil Gas” and certain agency’s ran from the stage screaming to its members to 'stay away.' Now here we are… Nitrox is the number one course taught by most agencies after basics training classes. Hummm…

There are excellent machines on the market and hopefully, with certain developments we can start to see the development of the recreational market and then maybe see some critical mass to help with sales. These units are growing very fast in certain non-recreational segments of the market.

I don’t think that they are made for everyone. But if you are diving to say 80ft or deeper and plan on doing technical dives why no take advantage of a Nitrox mixing machine.

I have my planned out. Dropping the price set up would help but that is going to take time.

My first pool dive was 2-1/2 hours long and I flew the machine on manual for most of that. I got out of the water feeling awesome. Stay that about scuba- how much gas would you need for a 2-1/2 hour dive? We used two S19 tanks and both were about half empty when we got out. This is the future.

In closing we need to show people this as another option. First we provided a learning tree that was for leadership, then we added technical diving, now we offer people closed circuit. We run them through Nitrox and Divemaster and offer them the option to dive Closed Circuit.

Silent diving all-

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

And today’s prize for the oldest resurrected thread goes to.....