Scuba Tech Tips w/ Alec Peirce on YouTube

[wheeledgoat]

For the past week or so I've been catching up on this series on YouTube. It's by Alec Peirce, a 70 year old veteran scuba diver with lots of experience in both the water and the shop.

Lots and lots of videos, usually in the neighborhood of 10-20 minutes each, on just about any topic you can imagine. And I find them downright entertaining to boot. Recommended for all, but especially the beginner with lots of questions. I've learned a lot.

And no, I'm not afiliated in any way, other than enjoying the videos and finding them extremely informative, useful, entertaining, and generally worth the time to watch.

I won't link to it here, sometimes people get funny about that. Just search YouTube for what's in the thread title. Enjoy.

 

[tbone1004]

I'll link it

Alec Peirce Scuba

I think a lot of the videos are really great, but there is a lot of stuff that I very much disagree with. I think a lot of the opinions in the tech tips stem from him owning a dive shop and working within the "standard" recreational world and a lot of the information in them reflects that.

I think the Vintage Scuba series is great though. I subscribed a few years ago and look forward to them when they come out

 

[wheeledgoat]

...but there is a lot of stuff that I very much disagree with.

The last thing I want to do is trash the guy, but for the purposes of a constructive and informative discussion, what do you disagree with him on?

 

[tbone1004]

it's not trashing him at all. I like him and respect him because he is truly one of the great old timers in diving. Actually I am currently watching his other youtube channel video on his chicken tractor which is super cool.
It is actually super interesting to watch his tech tips which are very modern recreational diving and what he talks about there vs. his vintage diving playlist where he talks about building rebreathers and having to build everything from scratch. Every once in a while you see that old timer in him fight to get in front of the modern recreational style

Most recent video I watched was on the fins so we'll go through that. His comments on the jet fins are largely true for most recreational diving, but are not always applicable for technical styles of diving which I am involved in. The main difference is that everything we do in technical diving is backwards compatible to all recreational diving, but very little in recreational diving is scalable up to technical diving. Split fins, hose retractors, etc etc.
Another is his opinion on primary donate that I think is very wrong. Little things, and I'd like to see more of it on the DIY little things of service that he's done. Hose replacement, use of IP gauges, small things that divers used to have to do on their own and made them better divers vs. what the industry says we should blindly trust dive shops to do for us.
Sadly most of us don't have a "Kevin" to do the video production side which is why you don't see a lot of similar channels. I'm super grateful for his channel and it is one of the ones I look forward to every time I get the email that it showed up, but there are some other things that I'd do differently based on my background

As I have time, I'm trying to get a few of these types of videos up, but I'm quite terrible at it. Need to bribe the wife to do my post processing.
Bryan at @Lake Hickory Scuba is doing a great job with some similar videos as well that are great for new divers. Again, some things that we have agreed to disagree on based on me not making a living from the diving industry and that I accept that there are concessions that have to be made to make a living at it. His channel here
LakeHickoryScuba
Achim Schloeffel has a youtube channel as part of Innerspace Explorers that now have their own subforum with @bluemed . Great videos there for how and why we do a lot of things in technical diving. They are very DIR oriented so we have some small disagreements there as well, particularly in sidemount, but it's a different style so agree to disagree there.
CoastalDevelopment - InnerSpace Explorers - ISE

 

[Brian Khan18]

I was thinking about writing a similar post. I found him like 2 years ago when I first got certified. I think he's outstanding in his knowledge, expertise and witty presentation. He replies to questions and comments too. I learned sooooo much from his videos. Best part too is he is great for any level of diver.

 

[wheeledgoat]

Another is his opinion on primary donate that I think is very wrong.

Sadly most of us don't have a "Kevin"

What IS his opninion on primary donate? I've actually been waiting to find that. Just this week I ordered my first reg assembly and after waffling, finally decided on a DIR-style 7' for primary donate (w/ safe 2nd on necklace). (actually I ordered 2 sets, other one for my daughter). Even though we've only ever dived w standard rental setups, we talked at length about it and we both want to try the primary donate setup. Not like we can't change it with a couple of hoses. I feel like I did my research, but I'm still very interested in any strong opinions arguing against primary donate, esp coming from someone with that much experience.

...and no doubt... We all need a Kevin... Lmao. Do we ever get to see this mystery man? Rare is the episode he doesn't get at least one mention!

 

[tbone1004]

his opinion in the video below. Primary donate was the right call btw. 7' may be too long for your daughter, but you can always stuff the hose in the waist belt which is what I do most of the time in OW anyway. If you want strong opinions against it, go look up BSAC. They don't allow it in any of their courses and you have to have formal training from another agency to be allowed to dive it within their clubs. Last I checked GUE of all agencies didn't count *who doesn't allow anything but primary donate*

 

[wheeledgoat]

I did see that "BCD Mounted Safe Second" video - and I actually agree with his conclusions there (where saving an octo hose isn't worth having your safe 2nd as part of your BDC inflator). The only part is this video is where he seems to advocate traditional setup is the theoretical situation where your buddy solves his own OOA situation by grabbing your octo, potentially without you even knowing.

I was hoping to find his opinions on a direct compare of Hogarthian/DIR vs traditional octo donate.

Thanks for the lead on BSAC

 

[tbone1004]

in my opinion, his opinions on that are going to be too skewed from decades in the dive industry as a dive shop owner and instructor to be valid in a real discussion. That argument as been hammered down on this forum several times and I have yet to actually ever hear a good argument for the traditional PADI hose setup

 

[Edward3c]

his opinion in the video below. Primary donate was the right call btw. 7' may be too long for your daughter, but you can always stuff the hose in the waist belt which is what I do most of the time in OW anyway. If you want strong opinions against it, go look up BSAC. They don't allow it in any of their courses and you have to have formal training from another agency to be allowed to dive it within their clubs. Last I checked GUE of all agencies didn't count *who doesn't allow anything but primary donate*

BSAC and GUE are the only agencies in the UK, apart from PADI that have ISO accreditation. And, yes since January 2016 BSAC do recognise GUE training, see here.