SAC rate during an emergency

[Superlyte27]

Okay... Well, I'm embarrassed to say this...
SAC rate in Open water .4
SAC rate in a Cave .6
SAC rate in a Cave in full blown emergency (completely lost) 2.89

Kept it together, made it out, but sucked down those tanks pretty stinkin fast.

 

[vinegarbiscuit]

My open water SAC rate is quite fair, but under stress, my SAC rate effectively doubles. I recall one dive with screaming cross-currents where I burned 500 psi just trying to get down. What was supposed to be a drift-dive turned into a marathon effort of trying to remain in one spot, which was just plain nasty and unpleasant. On the bright side, I'd always wondered what my 'stressed' SAC rate would be, and I sure as hell found out that day!

 

[knowone]

People react to heavy duty emergencies in different ways. On the surface or underwater, you can voluntarily push yourself to high work loads and the respiratory rates that go with it and get pretty close.

As a Scuba instructor, you might want to experience it — in a controlled environment of course. Just put on the largest set of fins you can find and swim against the side of a pool as hard and for as long as you can. Have somebody standing by and maybe with Oxygen available. Knowing the sensations and symptoms of overexertion underwater will make you better able to anticipate the onset and recognize it in others.

You might get a buddy to do the same exercise, breathing off your octo at the same time. It will also be a confidence building test of your regulators. On the other hand, if the regulators fail, that information would be worth even more.

Now THIS could replace a few specialties.

 

[farsidefan1]

My normal SAC varies between .45 to .55. When diving in high current in the Somosomo strait with my relatively new diver wife I was concerned and my Rate was .9 Hate to think how high it might be under emergency situation instead of just stressed and in high current.

 

[JanK]

As I wrote in another thread, where I described problems with a drysuit:

As an aside: my SAC on dives up to now was between 16 l/min and 24 l/min with median at 18 l/min, for this whole dive it was 42 l/min and I suspect that, since the first third of the dive went well, my actual SAC under high workload is around 50 l/min - a very sobering thought and a figure I need to remember when planning dives. On the other hand I now know that my regulators can easily provide these sorts of flows without getting harder to breathe.