Should I buy a pony bottle?

[jaycanwk]

Another viewpoint on a pony bottle:

Quote from PeronneFord, one of my favorite posters:

"A pony bottle is not a buddy. It cannot think. It cannot remind you to check your gas supply. It cannot tell you that you are too deep or breathing too fast. It cannot extricate you from fishing line, and it can't tell you not to do that swim-through because you'll get your fin caught and breathe down all your gas supply. A pony bottle has dubious purpose. IF your diving requires you to carry a larger gas supply, then you need a larger tank. IF your diving requires that you need redundancy because of the inherent danger of the dive, then use doubles.

The problem I see with most newer divers such as yourself is that you are discovering what most new divers discover shortly after OW class. And that is, the fallacy that "everything is always going to be ok". This is the impression OW class is designed to leave you with. On the opposite end of the spectrum, technical diving instructs that NOTHING will be OK, and we must plan for everything to fail. The truth lies somewhere in between.

So now you're doing dives and you realize, wow, what would happen if I got separated from my buddy and I needed air? I need a pony bottle. Or what would happen if I had a free-flow I couldn't stop it and I can't get to my buddy? I need a pony bottle. What happens if I don't pay attention and I run out of air? I need a pony bottle. No. You don't. What you need to do is to increase your diving skill and awareness so that you NEVER become separated from your buddy, and you NEVER become so inattentive to your depth and time, you breathe more gas than you should. And those two things won't cost you a dime.

Suppose, for instance that you actually learn how much air your breathe on the surface, and had a formula that told you how much you would consume at 60ft. And let's say that you learn that with your breathing rate, you knew you had 60 minutes at 60ft. And so did your buddy. If you both went to 60 ft and you cut off your tank, and shared with your buddy, you'd both have 30 minutes worth of air to breathe for an ascent. Plenty, with no pony bottle. Let's say you both went to 60ft did a dive of 30 minutes, and you shut off your tank. Now you share, and you both have 15 minutes worth of air to ascend. Plenty enough to deal with a catastrophic failure of either of your tanks, ascend normally, do a safety stop, etc. No pony bottle needed. But what happened was that your hour long dive now has to be 30 minutes long to have that kind of safety margin. So what happens if you both dive larger tanks? Well the time gets increased a bit, and you can stay longer with the same safety margin.

Suppose you increase your diving skill so that you and your buddy can always dive within arms distance of each other, even in zero vis? If you both had this level of skill, then losing your buddy would no longer be a reason to worry about carrying a redundant tank. Combine this with planning ahead so that you start your ascent with plenty of air in case something goes wrong, and you eliminate the need for the pony bottle altogether.

So what happens when you really DO want to stay for an hour, AND have the safety margin? You transition to doubles. That is why you see many technical divers move to doubles and never move back. It's not that the dives they are doing are always penetration dives, or very hard dives. It's that doubles offer a vast safety margin that allow them to deal with many underwater problems without stress or worry. I don't do dives below 70ft or so any more without doubles and a solid buddy. Just not worth the risk.

In my view, you should be working far harder on increasing your diving skill, including learning to plan your dives with adequate safety reserves, and you should be spending far less time worrying about what you can buy to mitigate the lack of those skills.

That's just my opinion, so take it for what it's worth."

The link to the thread:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/accidents-incidents/233033-pony-taboo-2.html#post3548812

Just something to consider, while deciding if a pony bottle is for you.

-Mitch

Lets start by making it clear that I totally agree with what you have just said/posted.

To play Devil's advocate for just a minute, I'll re-phrase what you have just said.

I am a safe driver. I never speed. I obey all traffic rules. I am certified in defensive driving techniques and my car is always tuned up and in good mechanical condition.
Therefore there shouldn't be any need for me to wear a seat belt.

 

[idive2]

Almost for sure, your guage was off (by about 200 psi). 100 psi is a lot of pressure, think of how hard a bike tire is with that amount of pressure in it.

Yeah, you're probably right on this. It was a very old spg and if anything can wear or lose calibration this spg would have
been the one. It was replaced shortly after this incident. Not sure how good a test this is but sometimes after the valve is closed
I will very slowly in very small amouts purge the reg and I like to see the gauge on zero when the reg is done purging.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

Lets start by making it clear that I totally agree with what you have just said/posted.

To play Devil's advocate for just a minute, I'll re-phrase what you have just said.

I am a safe driver. I never speed. I obey all traffic rules. I am certified in defensive driving techniques and my car is always tuned up and in good mechanical condition.
Therefore there shouldn't be any need for me to wear a seat belt.

I get your point......but, with all that being said.....do you ever run out of gas?

Not considering the rare, spontaneous gas tank failure that might have all of your gas spilling out onto the road.

-Mitch

 

[Insta-Gator]

 

[Thalassamania]

Lets start by making it clear that I totally agree with what you have just said/posted.

To play Devil's advocate for just a minute, I'll re-phrase what you have just said.

I am a safe driver. I never speed. I obey all traffic rules. I am certified in defensive driving techniques and my car is always tuned up and in good mechanical condition.
Therefore there shouldn't be any need for me to wear a seat belt.

That's specious crap and you know it. Even if your driving is perfect, everyone else's is not. You can never speed, obey all traffic rules, retrain monthly in defensive driving, tune your car weekly and still the drunk who shoots through a stop sign at night with his lights off (happens all the time here) can make you wish you were wearing a seatbelt.

 

[jaycanwk]

That's specious crap and you know it. Even if your driving is perfect, everyone else's is not. You can never speed, obey all traffic rules, retrain monthly in defensive driving, tune your car weekly and still the drunk who shoots through a stop sign at night with his lights off (happens all the time here) can make you wish you were wearing a seatbelt.

You are correct. Substitute "seatbelt" for "pony bottle" and that was basically the point I was making in response to Pullmyfinger. I sling a pony bottle for those occasions that might be beond my control.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

I hear what your saying.....it's just that a pony bottle is usually offered up as a defense against running out of gas.

Ideally, as we all know, good planning would negate the need to a pony bottle.

But.....I also realize that things are not always ideal (meaning: no solid dive buddies).

I also realize it's another tool in the box.

-Mitch

 

[beaverdivers]

Most of our rec. divers dive with ponies. It is the way to dive.

Once you make the move up to a pony, you will not look back!

 

[Roko]

Most of our rec. divers dive with ponies. It is the way to dive.

Once you make the move up to a pony, you will not look back!

I looked back... Now my pony is only used as an air supply for leak checking my dry suit, awaiting the day I get into Tec and turn it into a deco bottle. For now, I've found I vastly prefer diving with buddies I can trust.

Sent from my SGH-I897 using Tapatalk

 

[Pullmyfinger]

Most of our rec. divers dive with ponies. It is the way to dive.

Once you make the move up to a pony, you will not look back!

It would appear that there aren't that many solid dive buddies around (are there not many being trained thay way?), if the majority of recreational divers are using a pony bottle.

Either that, or a convincing salesman of pony bottles.