Resort's " New Normal " Rule - No AIR 2 or diving your long hose

[Angelo Farina]

I disagree. Another poster has already stated that he took his buddy's Air2 (and had control of his buoyancy). It's not convenient, but it can be done.

Everything can be done. But it is definitely an high risk situation, which should be avoided. We should teach and plan for maximum safety, not for risky situations like this...

Let's flip this around. If you have an ooa emergency, and your buddy offers you his primary, are you going to refuse that as well?

If there is no secondary available, of course we will share the only available primary.
It actually happened to me, the buddy was my wife, and at the time we did only own one reg each.
We were at 30m inside a small cavern. Sharing a single reg with a short hose was not easy. We made it, but after coming back we immediately purchased other two MK5+109. It was july 1979.
After that incident, we did never dive without an easy to donate secondary.

 

[scubadada]

https://buddydive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/BDR-Safety-Measures-v3.pdf

A little bit funny that 1.5 m is a little short of 5 feet.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Not to turn this into more of a circus, but what's the rationale for not having an isolation manifold?

 

[saxman242]

It is simple.

Agreed, it's very simple.

With your training, primary donate is not allowed. That's fine. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the Air 2 specifically, it's that primary donate as a whole is inconsistent with your training. These are two drastically different statements.

 

[Angelo Farina]

So you are OK with removing a reg from your mouth? Why is that now OK, but a few posts ago it was something you would NEVER do?

It is in emergency, helping someone, that you should not remove the reg from your mouth. In normal condition you can test the secondary, if you want.
However, I do not see the need to swap the regs when they are mounted on my Aralu twins... It is not a modern manifolded twin, it is a classic twin with the reserve valve on the right cylinder.
Being a Technisub valve, the reserve rod cannot be pulled unadvertedly...

 

[Gareth J]

Let's flip this around. If you have an ooa emergency, and your buddy offers you his primary, are you going to refuse that as well?

Honestly, I don't think anyone would refuse a regulator, even with a risk of Covid19, if they where about too drown.

The real problem, is training, drills, and buddy checks.
Hence the likes of GUE changing their protocols, at least for the short term, doing a S drill will now be modified. The necklace regulator will be in the divers mouth, then long hose will be exchanged during the S drill, then clipped/bungied in case it is required.

As I said earlier, the impact will be felt more in diver training, first aid training, etc.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Agreed, it's very simple.

With your training, primary donate is not allowed. That's fine. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the Air 2 specifically, it's that primary donate as a whole is inconsistent with your training. These are two drastically different statements.

In fact I like the Air2, and there is nothing wrong using it. It increases safety.
But, when and where primary donate is not allowed, an Air2 does not remove the need for a standard secondary.
You do not need to remove the Air2 from your BCD.
When it happened to me to have customers diving under my supervision, not equipped with a proper secondary, I did simply take one from the plastic basket containing spare regs and mount it on the second post of their tank.
In our resorts (Club Vacanze) we did not usually charge any money for borrowing an additional reg...

 

[formernuke]

So what happens when the panicked diver rips the reg from your mouth? Do you panic because you are not used to not having your reg? Now two panicking people. Do you fight him for it?

The stats only show reported incidents, I have seen this.... it was not reported as no one was injured.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

So what happens when the panicked diver rips the reg from your mouth? Do you panic because you are not used to not having your reg? Now two panicking people. Do you fight him for it?

The stats only show reported incidents, I have seen this.... it was not reported as no one was injured.

I only know a statistically insignificant number of people who have had to deal with OOG divers. 6 out of 7 had their primaries ripped from their mouths. None of these resulted in an injury. And of course, none of this is tracked, other than people sharing anecdotes that are not statistically significant.

Edit after Angelo's response. These people were mugged by people they didn't know/were not their buddy. A different scenario than described below.

 

[Angelo Farina]

I had customers requiring air from me at least 5 times. To my wife it happened perhaps 10 times, as she worked as instructor at Maldives longer than me.
It was a common thing, as customers were given just a 10 liters single at 200 bar, whilst DMs and instructors had 15 liters (and three air sources).
In a couple of cases I did supply air simultaneusly to TWO customers.
No one of them ever attempted to grab the primary from our mouths.
The rule was simple, get the yellow reg with long, yellow hose. If you make this clear, usually there is no problem.
Note that at the time no agency was allowing for primary donate.
I think that there was better standardisation at the time.