Riding Blind with your DSMB reel

[The Chairman]

And you're blaming the gun powder and not your friend?

I blame my friend for TOUCHING the powder, just as I blame people who get bent for USING Ratio Deco.

Yes yes, stick your head in the sand rather than explore the possibility that maybe...just maybe... you're wrong.

Is this your mantra for how you dive? You just keep putting in your head in the sand and refuse to see how many get bent on Ratio Deco? Denial is not a great strategy for survival.

Blaming a system for hurting people, who don't know how to use it in the first place, isn't the fault of the system!

Again, a system that fails because a diver loses track due to narcosis, is a problem with the system.

All this defense over Ratio Deco and not one mention of any benefits it might provide. At this point it's a solution in search of a problem and it's a problematic solution at that. Any PDC can yield superior results with a far smaller chance of getting bent. Ratio Deco is not going to make me safer. It won't keep me warmer. It won't increase the number of fish that I'll see. OK, so it's good for your ego if you don't get hurt using it. Sorry, but that don't impress me much. I have never been bent and that's no accident. I'm OK with that.

 

[PfcAJ]

So we're using one term (ratio deco) to describe two things.

One is looking at the relationship between depth, bottom time, and deco time to be able to come up with an ascent plan that matches an algorithm.

The other skips all that and shakes out to coming up with a deco plan that matches what AG says it should.

One of those is reasonable. Another one isn't.

 

[PfcAJ]

I blame my friend for TOUCHING the powder, just as I blame people who get bent for USING Ratio Deco.

Is this your mantra for how you dive? You just keep putting in your head in the sand and refuse to see how many get bent on Ratio Deco? Denial is not a great strategy for survival.

Again, a system that fails because a diver loses track due to narcosis, is a problem with the system.

All this defense over Ratio Deco and not one mention of any benefits it might provide. At this point it's a solution in search of a problem and it's a problematic solution at that. Any PDC can yield superior results with a far smaller chance of getting bent. Ratio Deco is not going to make me safer. It won't keep me warmer. It won't increase the number of fish that I'll see. OK, so it's good for your ego if you don't get hurt using it. Sorry, but that don't impress me much. I have never been bent and that's no accident. I'm OK with that.

How many are getting bent? I know zero people who have been bent with RD. Zip.

I know a solid handful that have been bent following tables or computers.

Again, what training do you have regarding RD? You hold strong opinionsbabout something you don't even understand.

 

[Remy B.]

I suppose Aj meant you should get retrained at your level by another instructor... an instructor that's not advising his stundents to do the 'two finger tight 2nd stages', deep air and stuff like that. That instructor might not be the best trainer around.

Just to be clear, my instructor doesn't promote air diving beyond 40m.

Again you are assuming wrong, I guess you are saying TDI is as well is wrong about extended range, as well as other agencies.

I take my own decisions according with who I'm diving and under which conditions, which may not be the smarts thing, if it is so wrong then all recognized agencies are wrong, and they shall put on the requirements minimum 500dives and minimum 30 dives per course, that is not happening is it, somewhere you have to begin.

I appreciate your concerns anyway.

 

[Remy B.]

Please, please, please be careful with Ratio Deco. According to one of the physicians at DAN, the chance of being bent by ratio deco is far, far higher than using tables or a PDC. Since it's all in your mind, just a little narcosis can have disastrous results. I certainly won't ever use it and I've been diving since 1969 without any signs of DCS.

Pete, I believe what AJ wanted to tell me that it is a good tool to have as a backup, please correct me if I understood wrong AJ .

 

[_Ralph]

Simply put as I mentioned before (and has been touched upon a little), there are 2 "Ratio Deco"s out there (could be others with more proliferation of "DIR" organizations popping up and 'needing' their own 'tricks'/marketing, etc)

GUE and UTD are the ones that I know of, and know how they do or don't work.

Having said that, I DONT KNOW HOW UTD's version WORKS. I would like to take the course just to see what it is, but, from everything that I've read, asked (to AG personally), it's way down on my list after doing laundry and taking out the garbage.

GUE Ratio Deco is based on 20/85 GF and approximates the same ascent (usually slightly more conservative) within a specified range of depths for a range of time while using standard gases (i.e., 30/30, 21/35, 18/45, 15/55, with 50% and 100% for deco)

There was a fairly consistent ratio of depth/bottom time and the deco associated with it.

With UTD ... well, all bets are off. It's a "Strategy" that is "superior" to any mathematical decompression that works at any elevation or body of water, or .... And if you get bent on it, well, you did it wrong .... but "ratio deco" wasn't wrong, you were ......


They both came from the same place originally, a TOOL to help with the wide ranging of diving that was being done (exploration) without having to carry volumes of slates with every detailed decompression plan for that mount of bottom time and gases that were being carried.


With regards to GUE Ratio Deco, I don't know a GUE diver that doesn't already know what the dive will be (depth/bottom time), what Buhlmann will spit out, and what the ratio deco would be, and possibly how to modify it slightly to align better (or the bottom portion) with the 20/85 GF standard that GUE has adopted for its thousands of dives without incident.

It's a powerful tool, but not one that is 'winged' .....


_R

 

[Remy B.]

Pete, I suggest you break the RD discussion into a new thread "RD Throwdown".

/popcorn

With all the respect of the experts, please not again a Thread over what is better over the other, at the end it is not a precise science, people get a hit following one or the other for what I have read.

 

[The Chairman]

that it is a good tool

But it's not. Take along a second PDC. You don't need to figure this out during a crap storm of problems. Stick with what you know. Stick with what you know well.

 

[Bennno]

@Remy B.
I was just guessing as to what AJ was trying to tell you.

Not all agencies do deep air and most agencies have very low standards for instructors and stundents. If they were to set a 500 dive minimum for some course, they would just sell less courses.
The lower you set the requirements for a course, the more potentional customers you have.

Pete, what's PCD? Personal dive computer?

 

[Remy B.]

Nobody shall be judging my INST, if he introduce me to one Deco Algorithm, if VPM is wrong and putting additional time on your 12-9 and 6m, then were is the line of right and wrong ?

to much assumptions of which INST is bad and negligent, can it not be that it is just me the problem.

I see more people doing here in the Caribbean the same type of dives with singles on air, no backups no high%O2, these are Divemasters, and Instructors, with a Ton of more dives that what I have, now the question is who is right, I that took the training and carry the backups or them just because they have XXX or XXXX amount of dives ?