Reg setups: a Philosophy Question

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daniel f aleman:
You can never have too much gas. Figure what you need, then double it, and then get the right bottles to fulfill the specific needs of the dive profile.


yeah... still ... the question was whether we know what percentage of diver deaths are due to an OOA situation

and i guess a collorary question is how many of them would have been avoided had they had a pony bottle with them

it's easy to assume an "easy" answer, but sometimes the easy answers are wrong
 
Just buy a dozen or so SpairAir units, each is an independent air source. Strap them around your waist as if they were grenades.

Sorry, that was uncalled for.
 
fndmylove:
Just buy a dozen or so SpairAir units, each is an independent air source. Strap them around your waist as if they were grenades.

Sorry, that was uncalled for.


perfect :-) next dive thats what im doing.
 
Echo the endorsement of the necklaced secondary/long hose primary system, with the caveat that I see no need for switching between 5' and 7' hoses as some might suggest. I suggest you go with the 7'. I dive one for singles, coastal, quarry, cold, warm, Carribean. As TSandM noted, this is functional redundancy for your buddy, rather than you. But, that is important, too, particularly to your buddy. If I need to donate my primary to my buddy, I don't want to worry about messing with my pony as my back-up. I want to get on my necklace reg, THEN think about that, if needed.

TSandM:
Just make sure, if you are going to take down a separate tank, that it has a meaningful amount of gas in it.

One of the enduring threads on SB (started by TSandM, I think) asked, 'What equipment do you regret buying?' One of the top 5 items was a Spare Air (because it provided a useless amount of gas). Multiple similar comments (regrets) were also made about small pony bottles (less than 19cf). One poster even said that his 30 was smaller than he wanted, and he wished he bought a 40cf. So, if you go pony, think about a 40. (I dive one with a single tank or with doubles, it is not at all cumbersome or inconvenient.)

BTW, coastal operators in NC will generally not require a pony for the types of dives you describe (<120').
 
Per the DAN 2006 report, 13% of fatalities were due to insufficient breathing gas, which is roughly 1 in 8. This excludes the people who died due to entrapment in caves or wrecks, and the 3% who breathed the wrong gas and died of O2CNS hit.

Five of the only 15 cases where equipment was examined ended up in BC related drowning, three due to error, two due to BC failure. DAN feels the equipment problem reporting is not (edit) representative (edit) because equipment was examined in only a small subset of cases.
 
An AIR II is a bad idea, if it fails you loose power inflation of the BC (no big deal) and your secondary for your buddy

Why does everyone hate on the AIRII so much? I fail to see how an AIRII is any less reliable than a regular octopus. It just happens to integrate into your BC power inflator and eliminate a hose from your rig.

I also don't understand why people here say anything less than a 7' hose on the octopus is useless. That makes no sense at all. How far does my buddy need to be from me?

-Charles
 
charlesml3:
Why does everyone hate on the AIRII so much? I fail to see how an AIRII is any less reliable than a regular octopus. It just happens to integrate into your BC power inflator and eliminate a hose from your rig.


problem is that if your inflator hose connection fails (or something else goes wrong with it), you've lost both the AIRII and your BC inflation ... and now you only have one working second stage

whereas having a second stage separate from your BC hose will eliminate this problem

that's the thinking. you can accept or discard.


I also don't understand why people here say anything less than a 7' hose on the octopus is useless. That makes no sense at all. How far does my buddy need to be from me?


actually, no one said less than 7 feet is useless. you're making that up.

many people use a 5 foot hose.

if you're ever in a real OOA or try practicing a few realistic ones, you'll realize that the more room and distance you have between you and the other person, the smoother it goes.

it's great to have some room to manuever and not be wall-papered to your buddy when you're both highly stressed.

do you have to have it? of course not. you can do OOA with a one-foot hose.

is it easier with a seven foot hose? oh ya...

and when you're under that much stress and have a stressed diver in your hands, making it easier can make the difference between life and death
 
munitor:
Per the DAN 2006 report, 13% of fatalities were due to insufficient breathing gas, which is roughly 1 in 8.


wow ... well, certainly a significant number, but not the huge danger some people seem to think it is
 
H2Andy:
if you're ever in a real OOA or try practicing a few realistic ones, you'll realize that the more room and distance you have between you and the other person, the smoother it goes.

it's great to have some room to manuever and not be wall-papered to your buddy when you're both highly stressed.

do you have to have it? of course not. you can do OOA with a one-foot hose.

is it easier with a seven foot hose? oh ya...

and when you're under that much stress and have a stressed diver in your hands, making it easier can make the difference between life and death

Counselor, this won't last cross... as in, "Why not use a 10' hose?"
 

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